SEOUL - A SOUTH Korean company has decided to pull out from a troubled industrial complex in North Korea amid tensions on the peninsula over the North's recent nuclear and missile tests, officials said on Tuesday.

Skinnet, a Seoul-based fur manufacturer, would be the first South Korean company to stop operations at the complex in the North's border town of Kaesong since it was opened in 2004 as a key symbol of rapprochement and a hard currency earner for the North.

A Skinnet company official said the pullout would be completed this month. He said it was primarily due to 'security concerns' for its employees, but also because of a decline in orders from clients concerned over possible disruptions to operations amid the soaring tensions.

Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung confirmed the company's decision but renewed Seoul's commitment to developing the complex and asked the North to not to take any unilateral step that could raise concerns among the South Korean companies.

There was no immediate response from North Korea about the planned withdrawal.

But its fate has been in doubt since last month when North Korea threatened to scrap all contracts on running the joint complex and said it would write new rules of its own and the South must accept them or pull out of the zone. Adding to the uncertainty is Pyongyang's nuclear test on May 25 and a series of missile test-launches with possibly more to come, which have raised fears of a military confrontation.

Skinnet's announcement came two days before North and South Korean officials plan to hold talks on the factory park in Kaesong. -- AP