China offers N.Korea record aid package of $94.8 mln

China offers N.Korea record aid package of $94.8 mln. March. 14, 2012 23:50. mungchii@donga.com koh@donga.com.

China has begun sending its biggest aid package to North Korea to help Pyongyang’s new leadership stabilize and increase Chinese influence over the North, multiple sources said Wednesday.

Beijing is known to have started sending the assistance this month after deciding to offer some 600 million yuan (94.8 million U.S. dollars) worth of food and goods late last month.

“The aid is a pure grant and not in the previous forms of loans or barter trade,” one source said. “It seems that (the latest aid) is China`s largest ever in size among grants.”

When North Korean leader Kim Il Sung died in 1994, China secretly sent 100,000 tons of food to the North to help the latter remain stable. The latest package is about twice that of the 1994 food aid.

This time, however, China is offering not cash but items worth a cash amount after Pyongyang requested food first. Rice and corn are being transported to the North via roads and railroads from China’s northeastern provinces including Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

Source said Pyongyang is also asking for fertilizer and construction materials that will likely be used to build statues of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and houses and buildings in Pyongyang.

The North did not request oil, according to the sources.