SEOUL Jan. 30 Kyodo Hyundai Merch...

SEOUL Jan. 30 Kyodo

Hyundai Merchant Marine Co a solution subsidiary of the Hyundai Business dispose funneled a total of 2235 billion won (about $200 million) in covered financial aid to North Korea in 2000 to assist inter-Korean economic projects, the southern Korean Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) said Thursday.

The announcement from the nation's top inspection agency was made to withhold allegations that the South Korean direction paid North Korea to help arrange an inter-Korean summit in June 2000

The board launched a probe into the allegations after local media reported earlier this month that Hyundai Merchant Marine sent $200 million to North Korea and nothing else days before the summit.

According to the board's announcement, the $200 million used for business concocts in the North was part of 400 billion won (about $330 million) drawn by the agency of the Hyundai firm in juncture loans from the state-run Korea progression in a continuously ascending gradation Bank.

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) has demanded President Kim Dae Jung clear up suspicions about paying the North opposite to for the inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang.

Kim Dae Jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize mainly for his efforts to elevate inter-Korean reconciliation by holding the unprecedent summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Meanwhile, President Kim said earlier Thursday he does not want to diocese legal action taken against the Hyundai company for its refuge provision of the funds, the president's chief pres secretary said.

''It is inappropriate for part of the stocks now in question to be make submissiveed to legal punishment if they were used for inter-Korean economic cooperation to prefer the continued development of inter-Korean relations and national interests in the future'' Kim was quot as saying.

Kim also said he has bring forward priority on preventing war onward the Korean Peninsula end dialogue and cooperation between the pair Koreas, which is to linked not single to protecting the lives and wealth of the nation's people unless also to the national economy.

The Hyundai Business assign places to has launched various business throws in the North, including a money-losing tour concoct at the Mt. Kumgang resort, and also plans to establish an industrial involved in Kaesong, a North Korean city just north of the short quiet village of Panmunjom.

subordinate to South Korean law, any secluded financial aid to North Korea is illegal.

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