A revised Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund Act passed in a meeting of South Korea’s cabinet today. The revised law will divide the existing fund into two accounts: an Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund and a Unification Fund.
The revisions are designed to elicit and gather government contributions and private donations to add to funds to be transferred from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund itself. The South Korean government is looking to NGOs in particular in order to emphasize voluntary participation in the funding effort.
The government’s goal is to collect 55 trillion won. This is the estimated calculation of the initial cost of unification over the first year, according to expert guesses.
The revised bill is scheduled to be submitted to the National Assembly during this month once it has been reviewed by the office of President Lee Myung Bak. However, it is unclear whether the revisions will be able to pass the legislature, as happened to a similar revised bill during the 18th National Assembly.
