South Korea's top diplomat in Hong Kong remembers clearly the grim side of local aspirations for upward mobility during his first posting to the city. It was at the height of a financial crisis that drove dozens to despair. "In 2001, sadly, many Hong Kong people committed suicide because of the plummeted prices of apartments," Kim Kwang-dong, South Korea's consul general in Hong Kong, said. READ MORE: Middle-aged men most likely to commit suicide during economic downturn, Hong Kong helpline says "The property prices had gone down, so many Hong Kong people committed suicide in Sheung Wan or Wan Chai." That was the kind of city Kim, now 67, found himself in when he first became his country's top representative in Hong Kong in 2001. A year later, he moved on to other posts, including deputy minister for trade. He has been back since April, though. The veteran diplomat in fact retired about eight years ago, following which he founded an organisation called Better World in 2010 and visited Africa many times over to help build schools and set up clean water supplies. But he accepted an invitation to become consul general again, considering it might be the last opportunity to serve his nation. Hong Kong's "ambience" had become "brighter" over the years, he said, in contrast to the suicides that clouded the city in 2001. That year, according to the University of Hong Kong's Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, 1,029 suicides were recorded - an average of 2.8 a day and a 14 per cent rise from 2000. But Kim believed the sentiments he sensed were not just down to market turbulence. READ MORE: South Korean plastic surgeons have Hong Kong in their sights, says consul general "Coming back after 14 years, I can actually feel the city's development. The year 2001 was only four years after the handover to China. Asian countries [also] suffered from the financial crisis," he told the South China Morning Post at the same house he stayed in years ago. "There was a sense of instability … But [now] Hong Kong has matured its relations with [mainland] China in a more harmonious way even with last year's Occupy Central incident." On the North-South Korean divide, Kim said he used to have contact with Pyongyang's consulate in Hong Kong but had not met any of its staff since retuning. "In 2001, our relations with the North Korean brothers were not that bad," he said. "We came across [one another] in diplomatic social functions, lunch or dinner, and we sat together and talked to each other to discuss even the serious questions." No North Korean defectors had ever sought help from his Hong Kong consulate before, he said. It was different in Beijing, where he was posted from 1995 to 1997: "Every morning when I appeared at the embassy, hundreds of North Korean defectors stood in the queue." HK-South Korea ties ● Bilateral trade between Hong Kong and South Korea was US$29 billion last year ● More than 558,000 Hong Kong people visited South Korea last year, up almost 40 per cent from 2013 ● Population of South Koreans in Hong Kong: about 13,000 Consul General Kim Kwang-dong’s profile: ● Age: 67 ● Hobby: reading Previous positions include: ● Minister of the Korean delegation to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris ● Deputy minister for trade ● Ambassador to Brazil