– A Symposium Held on “Ten Years of Agricultural Exchanges and Cooperation between South and North Korea: Accomplishments and Tasks” 
– The Meeting Calls for the Creation of a Success Model –

On August 28, the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) held a symposium entitled “Ten Years of Agricultural Exchanges and Cooperation between South and North Korea: Accomplishments and Tasks.” 

At the symposium, which was held at the aT Center in Seoul, Choi Jung-Sup, president of KREI, delivered opening remarks and expressed his hope that the meeting will be a constructive forum for finding ways to enhance cooperation between the two countries.  

At the Part I session of the symposium, Cho Dong-Ho, professor at Ewha Womans University, delivered a keynote speech on “Environmental Changes and Strategic Tasks for Economic Cooperation between South and North Korea.” Pointing out that the agricultural cooperation projects so far have focused more on demonstration value rather than internal worth, Cho said that when seeking bilateral cooperation the South and North Korean economies must be considered at the same time and that there has to be a qualitative upgrading of North Korea’s production elements. 
  
Kim Young-Hoon, a senior researcher at KREI, also delivered a keynote speech on “The Present Situation and Direction for Agricultural Exchanges and Cooperation between South and North Korea.” In the speech, Kim assessed that since the North Korean economy has fallen into “a trap of capital shortage and stagnant reforms,” the long recession in North Korea cannot be eliminated unless self-reforms and agricultural assistance from abroad are made on a massive scale. Kim added that in seeking agricultural cooperation with the North, all forms of financial assistance, economic cooperation, and human exchanges should be carried out in a balanced way. Accordingly, he said, there have to be project monitoring and assessment alongside feedback. Above all, he said, it is crucial to build a national consensus and create a success model by carrying out cooperative projects in phases.
  
During the Part II session of the symposium, Lee Jong-Mu, director for peace sharing at the Korean Sharing Movement, delivered a speech on the achievements and future tasks of private organizations carrying out agricultural assistance projects. In the speech, Lee drew attention to the recent assistance projects that are apparently placed in the doldrums or in a difficult position. Pointing out that the assistance projects are not forecast to continue in the present way, the director stressed that the roles of the government and private businesses should be expanded, and that private organizations should be allowed to concentrate on their intrinsic role of promoting the reconciliation of the South and North Korean people through small-scale projects at the root level. 
  
From the government side, Kim Kyung-Kyu, division chief for agricultural structure policy at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, gave a keynote speech on the “Changes in the Environment and Policy Tasks for Agricultural Cooperation with North Korea.” In the speech, Kim said that the government’s policy goals are to relieve the North Korean people from food shortage, to help them build up the strength to undertake economic reforms and open up it doors to the outside world through productivity increase in agriculture, to spread an atmosphere of reforms and opening up in the North Korean society in general through changes in agriculture, and to find means of revitalizing the South Korean agriculture and related industries. As for the future direction of cooperation, Kim said that the government plans to gradually shift its policy from emergency relief to guiding agricultural development in North Korea and seek cooperation in stages to improve its technology and production bases.