Jeju Plans to Send Tangerines to NK

The government said Saturday that it would consider giving financial support to Jeju's self-governing city's plan to send its tangerines to North Korea.

Jeju asked the Ministry of Unification on Dec. 14 to finance its plan to send 20,000 tons of local tangerines to North Korea as part of humanitarian efforts. The city asked the central government to offer 3 billion won from the government's inter-Korean cooperation fund.

The government had supported Jeju's tangerine assistance for North Korea from 2001 to 2007, but the program failed to get government support last year due to less transparency in the distribution of the fruits to ordinary North Koreans.