South Korea has decided to increase its annual volume of official development assistance (ODA) by 22.6 percent next year to 1.34 trillion won (about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars), Prime Minister's Office announced Friday.
"South Korea needs to solidify its status as an advanced country, which is no longer an emerging power," Chung said in a meeting on global cooperation he presided over, according to local media.
The meeting was the first since the country in November joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a body comprised of donor nations, as its 24th member.
The planned international aid would amount to 0.13 percent of South Korea's gross national income, government statistics showed.
The blueprint also includes expansion of aid to Western Asian countries and Africa South of Sahara.
South Korea's rapid economic growth built on the ashes of the Korean War relied heavily on foreign aid, receiving a total of 13 billion US dollars between 1945 and the late 1990s, according to the OECD./.