The government says Seoul's humanitarian aid to North Korea posted a record high of 256 million U.S. dollars last year.

The volume tops the 232 million dollars worth of rice and other aid provided by the Kim Young-sam government in 1995.

The Unification Ministry said Tuesday that the government had contributed some 115 million dollars while the private sector had provided 141 million dollars, double the amount of 2003. Meanwhile, the international community donated approximately 165 million dollars in aid to the impoverished North.

A ministry official said that last year particularly saw a sharp rise in humanitarian assistance to the communist state after a large number of South Koreans made donations following a deadly train explosion in the North's border city of Ryongchon last April. The blast killed at least 160 people and injured more than 1,300.

In the meantime, the number of South Koreans who traveled to the North last year, not counting tourists to the Mount Geumgang resort, amounted to some 26,000, up more than 71 percent compared to the previous year.

The number of North Koreans who visited the South last year, however, sharply declined to a little over three hundred from more than one thousand in 2003.