Seoul`s budget for inter-Korean cooperation remains untapped

SEOUL, Oct. 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has so far this year spent less than 5
percent of its annual budget earmarked to promote reconciliation with North
Korea, the Unification Ministry's data showed Wednesday.
The meager spending of the inter-Korean cooperation budget mirrored stagnant
economic exchanges yet to be enlivened despite a recent thaw in political
relations.
The data showed that South Korea has set aside 1.16 trillion won (US$990.94
million) for this year's inter-Korean cooperation budget, which includes 43
billion won transferred from last year, to support joint business projects and
provide industrial and humanitarian aid to the North.
The budget spending as of the end of September amounted to 55.9 billion won, 4.8
percent of the total, according to the data.
In a detailed breakdown of the expenditure, the ministry spent 10.6 billion won,
or 11.3 percent of its earmarked budget for the South Korean-run factory park in
the North's border town of Kaesong, 93.8 billion won. Planned projects to build a
dormitory for North Korean workers and modernize roads there did not begin. The
Kaesong park hosts about 110 South Korean firms with 40,000 employees from the
North.
Humanitarian aid was the area in which funds were held back most. Out of the
earmarked 819.8 billion won, the ministry spent a meager 0.9 percent, or 7.7
billion won, so far. Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said in a parliamentary
audit Tuesday that Seoul will decide when to resume its rice and fertilizer aid,
crucial to food supply in the North, "considering the climate of future
inter-Korean relations."
The conservative government of President Lee Myung-bak suspended the decade-long
rice and fertilizer aid last year, taking office with a tougher stance on the
North's nuclear weapons program.
After a long stalemate, political relations now appear to be improving with the
North's conciliatory moves. The two sides recently held reunions for families
separated by the 1950-53, the first reunion since Lee came to power.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il suggested he would return to the six-party talks
aimed at ending his country's nuclear drive, which it quit earlier this year.
But the unification minister said, "I believe such massive food aid is outside
the boundary of what can be seen as the minimum humanitarian aid" and that Seoul
will decide "according to the situation of inter-Korean relations."
For social and cultural exchanges, the ministry spent 2.2 billion won, or 25.3
percent of the earmarked 8.7 billion won. As loans on inter-Korean cooperation,
11.3 percent or 21 billion won was executed out of 186.6 billion won.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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