Gov¡¯t pays 2-3 billion won for reunion

The government reported that it would pay all the expenses involved with the North Koreans who visited Seoul to meet their separated families in the South, and the costs include hotel accommodations, meeting arrangements, luncheons and dinner parties, and round-trip air fare.

The South Korean family members who visited Pyongyang spent an average of 2.5-3 million won per family. It is estimated that the visiting South Korean families must have spent 500-600 million won. Most of the money was used for gifts and cash, which was limited to US$1,000, for their North Korean families.

The historic reunion of separated family members in South and North Korea must have cost 2.5-3.6 billion won. It does not include the lost sales among hotels, which restricted accommodations for other customer people, or the inconvenience to public service through mobilization of public servants during the gathering. If such indirect costs are included, the total costs would have reached 3-4 billion won in addition to the actual costs, according to government