The budget for next year's national research and development projects has been raised by seven-point-six percent to ten-point-six trillion won or about ten billion U.S. dollars.

The National Science and Technology Commission has been overseeing state R&D projects this year, and areas of research include green resources, bio-welfare, basic research and high-tech fields, conversion technologies, and machinery and parts and materials.

New projects have been added such as in social or tourist services and for the development of technologies to address a potential eruption of Baekdu Mountain in North Korea.