Despite sanctions against Pyongyang, trade between the two Koreas reached a new record last year due to the normalization of operations at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.
 
The Ministry of Unification's White Paper on Korean Unification 2015 released Thursday outlined the amount of trade between the South and North was two-point-34 billion dollars last year, more than double the one-point-14 billion dollars in 2013, when operations at the industrial complex were temporarily on hold.
 
Trade within the Gaeseong complex accounted for 99-point-eight percent of total trade between the two Koreas last year.
 
The white paper also said the unification ministry will seek dialogue with the North at an appropriate time to build an ecological park in the demilitarized zone. It said the South will pursue preliminary plans to create the park before the two sides make an agreement.
 
The ministry has been publishing a white paper on unification since 1990 to help people understand the government's unification policy and to create national consensus on the unification of the Korean Peninsula.