PUAC Holds 2023 New Year's Special Forum of Regional Cooperation Standing Committee

The PUAC held a Special New Year's Forum at the conference room on the first floor of the Secretariat on January 27 (Friday). About 25 people, including members of the Regional Cooperation Standing Committee, participated in the event.

The forum was held to diagnose the chronic food shortage in North Korea, where food demand is greatly increasing amid stagnant and decreasing food production, and discuss how to approach North Korea's agricultural problems caused by drastic weather changes and ways to promote regional cooperation.

Park Jin-woo, chairman of the Regional Cooperation Standing Committee, said in his opening speech, "I hope 2023 will be a year to take a dynamic step toward the <audacious initiative> aiming for denuclearization, peace, and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula." “I hope all the committee members will work hard in the year 2023, the Year of the Rabbit,” he said. 

Executive Vice-chairman Kim Kwan-yong said, "The PUAC has a lot of information on peace and vast human networks at home and abroad. As a very important group of experts who choose and report policy advice to the chairman on peaceful unification, PUAC should focus its capabilities on fulfilling its due functions."

Kim also asked the members to have lively discussions, saying, "The reality faced by the PUAC is not easy to deal with and the many problems between the two Koreas cannot be solved at one go, but the situation can improve little by little if advisory committee members pull together their will and work together."

Secretary-General Seok Dong-hyeon also expected productive discussions of the members, saying, "I would like to express my gratitude and welcome to the members of the Regional Cooperation Standing Committee who hold today's meeting."

Keynote speaker Kim Young-hoon, a senior researcher at the Korea Rural Economic Research Institute, spoke on ‘North Korea Agricultural Problems Caused by Weather Changes and Approach to Regional Cooperation.’ His presentation had four parts: ▲Low Agricultural Production and Shortage of Food Supply in North Korea, ▲Climate Change and North Korean Agriculture, ▲North Korea’s Agricultural Response to the Climate Change and Abnormal Climate, ▲Direction of Cooperation with North Korea.

Participating committee members made various discussions on North Korea's food issues, and came up with many suggestions, including ▲linking the climate issue to North Korea's carbon reduction issue, ▲expanding the production base to resolve the North Korean food issue, ▲reviewing the possibility of easing sanctions against the North by excepting the food, and ▲reviewing the preconditions for cooperation of the central and local governments and their roles.

At the end, the meeting doubled as a New Year’s greetings for the Regional Cooperation Standing Committee, in which the participants renewed their determination to work harder with the committee in 2023 to solidify the foundation for peaceful unification.