SEOUL, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A plan to handle the cost of reunifying North and South Korea will be completed by mid-2011, South Korea's unification minister said Tuesday.
Hyun In-taek told civilian advisers his government will create a blueprint for financing reunification and present it to parliament in June, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
Experts have said the cost of merging North and South Korea will amount to trillions of dollars.
Last August the state-run Korea Development Institute estimated that South Korea will need $2.4 trillion over three decades in the event of a regime collapse in the North.
Pyongyang has denounced any cost projection that assumes it will implode.
Experts say the risk of a collapse heightened in 2008 when North Korean leader Kim Jong il reportedly suffered a stroke.
North and South Korea have been divided by a heavily armed border since 1953 when the Korean War ended in a truce.
