Archive for the ‘2014 aid from South Korea’ Category

ROK agricultural assistance heads to DPRK

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

The Hankyoreh reports on some agricultural aid heading to the DPRK:

ace-Gyeongnam-Hanky-2014-10-1

Picture above via the Hanhyoreh

The article reports:

Trucks carrying materials for greenhouses, fertilized soil and plant seeds for North Korea crosses Unification Bridge in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Sept. 30. The 200 million won worth of goods were donated by Ace Gyeongnam.

Greenhouses have been constructed all across the DPRK in the last few years.

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Private aid driven to DPRK from ROK

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

According to the JoongAng Ilbo:

Twenty container trucks from Ace Gyeongam, a charity foundation fund by bed manufacturer Ace, cross the inter-Korean border yesterday to provide agricultural aid to North Korea. About 200 million won ($190,000) of farming goods will be sent to North Hwanghae Province, marking the first time aid was delivered on a round trip using inland highways between the two Koreas.

Read the full story here:
Aid on the way
JoongAng Ilbo
2014-10-1

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2014 Inter-Korean development plans

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014

According to the Daily NK:

The Ministry of Unification released its plans for the 2014 Inter-Korean Development Program on August 18th. 96 new enterprises are among the proposals stipulated in the report’s 30 articles.

The chief components of the plan include:

1. the establishment of a channel for consistent Inter-Korean dialogue
2. a solution for the Separated Families issue
3. provision of humanitarian aid geared towards North Korean citizens
4. adherence to international regulations through a cooperative exchange system
5. the restoration of national solidarity through sociocultural exchanges
6. expanding other ongoing inter-Korean economic collaboration projects
7. normalization of Kaesong Industrial Park operations and
8. tailoring refugee resettlement funds to individual defector needs.

In a statement about the plan, a Ministry of Unification official said, “There is much significance in the fact that this proposal was a government-wide effort; a total of 24 administrative bodies came together to formulate these ideas and strategies.”

The comprehensive program also included detailed plans for the repair and renovation of the Kaesong-Pyongyang Expressway and the Kaesong-Sinuiju Railway. The premise of the official Inter-Korean Development Program has always been to improve overall conditions in the North while fostering better relations between North and South, but this most recent plan is the first to delineate detailed plans for large-scale investments in infrastructure.

Expansion of other inter-Korean economic collaborations were also outlined, such as:
1. Kaesong-Sinuiju railroad and Kaesong-Pyongyang railroad repairs
2. Imjin River flood prevention business
3. Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] support of the North Korean fishing industry
4. proposals such as vitalization of inter-Korean shipping are included. In addition, depending on the situation, 5. they plan to gradually introduce reopening trade and commerce, resumption of basic economic cooperation and, launching of new businesses.

A continued dedication to improving human rights in North Korea was also announced, starting with continued pressure on lawmakers to overcome the impasse and pass the North Korean Human Rights Act. The proposed law first appeared in 2005 but has since stagnated in the National Assembly due to failure by ruling and opposition parties to reach a consensus. Additional plans to increase support to private organizations advocating human rights in North Korea as well as striving to implement the recent recommendations by the UN based on the Commission of Inquiry [COI] findings on human rights in North Korea.

The South Korean government expressed its intentions to improve the quality of life for North Korean residents by increasing humanitarian aid and support. Most notably, the South vowed to separate political and humanitarian issues, ensuring that vulnerable social groups receive the support they need, regardless of tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Read the full story here:
Report: 2014 Inter-Korean Development Plans
Daily NK
Koo Jun Hoe
2014-8-19

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ROK aid to the DPRK in 2014

Monday, August 11th, 2014

According to Yonhap:

South Korea said Monday it will provide North Korea with US$13.3 million in humanitarian aid, in another show of its resolve to separate inter-Korean military tensions from efforts to help the needy in the North.

The South has decided to offer $7 million worth of nutritional assistance to mother and child health services in the communist nation via the World Food Program (WFP), according to the unification ministry.

Seoul will also deliver $6.3 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) for its projects to ship essential medicine to the North, improve clinics and train related manpower there, it added.

“The government plans to tap the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund for the aid,” ministry spokesman Kim Eui-do told reporters.

It is the first time that South Korea has offered assistance to North Korea through the WFP since 2007, he said. Last year, the South used $6 million to support the WHO’s project in North Korea.

Seoul’s new aid program is apparently to follow up on President Park’s ambitious “Dresden Declaration” in March.

Read the full story here:
S. Korea to offer US$13 mln in aid to N. Korea
Yonhap
2014-8-11

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Eugene Bell offers TB assistance to the DPRK

Monday, July 28th, 2014

According to Yonhap:

The Eugene Bell Foundation, which provides medical assistance to the impoverished North, will send 770 million won (US$750,000) worth of TB medication to the communist country, ministry officials said.

In February, the foundation shipped 720 million won worth of TB drugs to the North in an attempt to tackle the growing issue of multidrug-resistant TB in the country.

So far this year, the South has approved 11 shipments of civilian aid worth a combined 2.82 billion won to North Korea.

The latest approval comes after Seoul announced on July 15 that it will provide Pyongyang with humanitarian aid worth 3 billion won through civilian organizations.

It marks Seoul’s first state-funded aid to North Korea since the North torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in 2010, killing 46 sailors. Following the incident, Seoul imposed a blanket ban on cross-border economic and other exchanges.

Read the full story here:
Gov’t OKs civilian medical aid to N. Korea
Yonhap
2014-7-28

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ROK private sector aid to the DPRK at low

Monday, June 16th, 2014

ROK-DPRK-aid-Hankyoreh

According to the Hankyoreh:

In terms of levels of private-sector [interchanges], the situation is even worse than the previous all-time low under the Lee administration. According to the annual White Paper on unification published in March, the total amount of private aid to North Korea authorized by the Ministry of Unification in 2013 stood at 5.1 billion won (US$5million). This amount not only pales in comparison to the 90.9 billion won (US$89.3million) okayed in 2007, the last year of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, but is only one-sixth the 31.0 billion won ($30.5 million) annual average during the Lee years. Even in 2011 and 2012, years when interchange and cooperation with North Korea were banned under the May 24 measures adopted in the wake of the ROKS Cheonan sinking, aid from NGOs amounted to 13.1 billion won (US$12.9million) and 11.8 billion won (US$411.6million), respectively. Between 120,000 and 180,000 people traveled between the Koreas under the Lee administration in comparison with last year’s total of 76,000. The Ministry of Unification is calling the numbers misleading.

“Last year, there was not any real aid to North Korea until August because all ties had been cut off after their third nuclear test in February,” a senior ministry official said on condition of anonymity. “The amount of aid and the number of people involved in exchange fell because there was a six-month vacuum,” the official explained.” The NGOs are countering by arguing aid has remained at a low 2.1 billion won (US$2.06million) this year, despite a lack of major frictions.

There are, however, signs of some change in inter-Korean interchange though the NGOs are cautioning against reading too much into the government’s decisions. On June 4, the Ministry of Unification approved the first agricultural exchange effort since the May 24 measures. The Gyeongnam Unification Agricultural Cooperation Committee has sent 33 million won (US$32,400) worth of strawberry seedlings to North Korea, where they are to be grown for four months before being brought back South

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1090 Peace and Unification Campaign offers aid

Monday, February 24th, 2014

According to the Joong Ang Ilbo:

A South Korean civic group sent a large shipment of food aid for North Korean infants, a major humanitarian assistance approved by the Park Geun-hye administration.

A ship carrying 26,000 cans of powdered milk totaling 22.1 tons departed for North Korea yesterday from Incheon Port, west of Seoul. The amount can feed about 13,000 babies for a month, according to the civic group 1090 Peace and Unification Campaign, which is in partnership with the JoongAng Ilbo.

The milk, worth about 340 million won ($316,868) wholesale, will arrive in Nampo, a western port city of North Korea, via Dandong, a port in China.

“At a moment of transition in inter-Korean relations with the ongoing reunions of separated families, it is a meaningful event to send the powdered milk for North Korean babies,” Lee Young-sun, chairman of the group and a former president of Hallym University, told the JoongAng Ilbo.

Along with medicine, powdered milk is needed in the North. Despite frosty relations with Pyongyang over the past few years, Seoul has frequently approved shipments of powdered milk or medicine by civic groups in South Korea. The Ministry of Unification, which is in charge of the approvals, green-lighted the civic group’s plan to send the milk on Friday.

President Park Geun-hye emphasized the need for humanitarian assistance to North Korea at a New Year’s press conference on Jan. 6.

Read the full story here:
Powdered milk sent to hungry babies in North
Joong Ang Ilbo
2014-2-25

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