Jeju Province Sends $104,000 in Dialysis Machines and Tangerine Saplings to North Korea Amid Controversy Over Official Ties

The Jeju provincial government sent dialysis machines, tangerine saplings and other supplies worth 160 million won (US$104,000) to North Korea. The items arrived at the North's western port of Nampho on May 4 after departing South Korea's Incheon port on April 1 and transiting through China's Dalian port. The province submitted its application to the unification ministry on March 9.

The shipment included medical equipment, forestry pesticide and saplings of Hallabong, a citrus fruit grown on Jeju. The goods were delivered in cooperation with a North Korean support group for the disabled, though the province has not yet received confirmation from the North Korean side. Gov.

Oh Young-hun discussed inter-Korean cooperation projects with Unification Minister Chung Dong-young last November. In February a provincial delegation met North Korean officials and agreed to carry out projects in phases, beginning with tangerines, medical welfare and forest pest control before expanding to pig farming and tourism.

The Jeju government declined to confirm a local media report that Oh met Ri Ho-nam in Beijing in February.

Ri is known for his suspected involvement in a 2019 North Korea remittance case in which prosecutors alleged a former chairman of underwear maker Ssangbangwool illegally delivered $700,000 to Ri at a hotel in Manila. Under earlier inter-Korean projects the island sent 48,000 tons of tangerines and 18,000 tons of carrots to North Korea from 1998 to 2010.

Those exchanges were suspended after the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship in the Yellow Sea that killed 46 sailors.