NEW YORK -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday instructed his Cabinet to map out specific measures to build grain storage facilities abroad to facilitate food aid shipments to North Korea, his spokesperson said.
Lee issued the instruction while emphasizing the importance of grain and natural resource security at an in-flight workshop with some Cabinet ministers and senior aides aboard a chartered Korean Air plane en route to the U.S. for his historic summit with President George W. Bush.
Lee, accompanied by first lady Kim Yoon-ok and about 120 delegates, arrived in New York Tuesday to begin his five-day visit to the U.S. aimed at restoring strained relations and promoting South Korea's economic revival and reform programs to global investors.
"Spiraling prices for rice and livestock feed would pose problems to our effort to send food aid to North Korea. On my return home, I'll have the government devise measures to install overseas grain storage bases," Lee was quoted by his spokesperson, Lee Dong-kwan, as saying at the workshop.
Lee specifically pointed to the Russian Far East as one of the potential sites for South Korea's offshore grain storage.
"In the Russian Far East, for example, we can consider a long-term land lease for about 30 to 50 years. North Korean labor can be utilized there and direct grain shipments to North Korea can be possible due to the short transportation distance," said Lee.
Since his inauguration in late February, Lee has urged North Korea to completely abandon its nuclear weapons program to pave the way for inter-Korean peace and closer economic cooperation.
But he has also vowed that his government would continue the existing inter-Korean economic cooperation projects and the provision of humanitarian aid to North Korea, even before the dismantlement of the North's nuclear program.
The president also noted that a long-term land lease in Southeast Asia, where two to three crop farming is possible, can be also taken into consideration for the on-the-spot production of rice and other grains.
"We should eventually make preparations for feeding 70 million people on a unified Korean Peninsula. The government will be in charge of securing land for overseas grain storehouses, while their management can be entrusted to private companies," said Lee. (Yonhap)