ID :
205730
Wed, 09/07/2011 - 10:44
Auther :

(LEAD) Ruling party chief seeks to boost grain production in N. Korea

(ATTN: RECASTS throughout to highlight proposals on agriculture; TRIMS; CHANGES headline)
SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's ruling party leader unveiled a set of proposals to help North Korea boost agricultural production and ease its chronic food shortages.
The impoverished country has been struggling to increase grain production since the late 1990s when a massive famine was estimated to have killed about 2 million people.
Rep. Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the Grand National Party, floated the proposals in a parliamentary address, saying that South Korea is willing to expand irrigation facilities in the North while providing fertilizer and other agricultural equipment.



"We should make a paradigm shift in our aid to the North in a way that could create a basis for food production" by recovering the North's agricultural productivity, Hong said in a speech at the National Assembly.
South Korea was one of the largest donors of food and fertilizer to the North, but it has stopped shipments since 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office with a get-tough policy toward the North.
Seoul suspended almost all ties with North Korea after the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North in March last year, and the North's shelling of a South Korean border island in November.
Still, in a sign of easing tensions, South Korea's Red Cross is preparing to send baby food to North Korea across the heavily fortified border next week as its first batch of emergency aid to North Korea's flood victims.
In August, Seoul offered to send 5 billion won (US$4.7 million) worth of emergency relief aid, including baby food, biscuits and instant noodles, to North Korea.
Hong also suggested that two Koreas jointly operate a sericulture industry and push for contract farming projects in the North as it grows high-income crops.
South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, did not make any immediate comment on the proposals.
Hong made the proposals as he called for a flexible policy toward North Korea in the latest sign that Seoul wants to improve strained relations with Pyongyang.
Last week, Yu Woo-ik, the unification minister nominee tapped to lead South Korea's policy on North Korea, vowed to explore ways to exert "flexibility" in dealing with Pyongyang.
The party leader also expressed his willingness to visit an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North's western border city of Kaesong in what could be a symbolic gesture to support the joint venture.
Despite lingering political tensions, the two divided Koreas have continued production at the complex, an achievement of the first inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in 2000.
entropy@yna.co.kr
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