By Kim Young Deok and Kim Young Shin

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Feb. 7 announced that a tourist trail will be opened near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas.

By 2030, the ministry said it will invest KRW 13.2 trillion jointly with six border areas in Gangwon-do Province to conduct 225 development projects in those regions.

"The investment will serve as an opportunity to boost growth engines in the border areas," Interior Minister Kim Boo Kyum said.

One of the projects is tentatively called “Unification-Opening Road” (통일을 여는 길), or a hiking trail that connects Ganghwado Island in Incheon and Goseong-gun County in Gangwon-do, both of which border the DMZ. Between this year and 2022, KRW 28.6 billion will go into developing the trail as a tourist attraction.

Another venture tentatively called “Peace Road” will form a traffic network between Yeongjongdo Island, where Incheon International Airport is, and Sindo Island off the coast of Incheon. And the so-called Unification Cultural Exchange Center, (통일문화 교류센터), an experiential museum to be built in Cheorwon-gun County in the eastern province, will foster cultural exchange between South and North Korea.

The investment plan is an update of one released in 2011 that targeted the border area, with the revision coming due to recent shifts in government policy and improvement in inter-Korean ties.

kyd1991@korea.kr