Gov’t Preparing Financial Plan for Reunification

South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek (photo) said Tuesday, “The government will prepare a plan to procure financial resources for unification (of the Korean Peninsula) by the first half of next year.”

In a meeting of the Unification Ministry’s policy advisory committee in central Seoul, he said, “We will commission a study in mid-October, and based on the results to be released by the end of February next year, we will collect intra-government opinions by April and report it to the National Assembly by June.”

“The Unification Ministry has created a roadmap to elicit public discussion over financial sources for unification by creating a group for the discussion of financial sources for unification led by Deputy Unification Minister Um Jong-sik.”

Hyun added. “As part of efforts to generate a comprehensive and systematic discussion, we will start the process of making the issue public among the people.”

Since President Lee Myung-bak proposed a “unification tax” in his Liberation Day speech Aug. 15, academics have held active discussion on the financial sources in preparation for reunification. Scholars, however, differ in the amount of funds and how to secure them depending on assumptions such as how reunification will be achieved and the target income of North Koreans under a reunified Korean Peninsula.

A ministry source said, “The government’s gathering of various study results and people’s opinions and officially presenting the amount of money and method of securing financial sources are meaningful.”

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