Through the Hana Overseas Club, Hana Bank managed the Korean financial assets of its overseas customers.

In addition to blocking Chinese and North Korean assets, the Division administered certain regulations and orders issued under the amended Trading with the Enemy Act.

Though the new proposals do not refer specifically to foreign investment, Mr. Pyeon said he believed that they would encourage potential investors to look at South Korean assets.

The United States froze $24 million in North Korean assets, largely shutting North Korea out of the international financial system.

Korea: North Korean leader's death to temporarily unsettle South Korean assets.

Buyers and sellers have vastly different ideas about how Korean assets should be priced and what constitutes liability.

Goodwill by all sides has led to the US unfreezing all of the North Korean assets on March 19, 2007.

The plaintiffs, as of October 2009, were attempting to collect the judgment from North Korean assets frozen by the U.S. government.

The United States has also proposed increased relief and has brought up the possibility of releasing some frozen North Korean assets, the officials said.

North Korean assets in the United States will remain blocked by the Trading With the Enemy Act.