The ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and its coalition partner the United Liberal Democrats (ULD) will hold a meeting on how to handle the additional 10,300 tons of garlic to be imported from China by the end of August.

Agriculture and Forestry Minister Han Kap-soo and Rep. Kim Young-jin, chairman oman of the MDP's special committee for farmers and fishermen, are slated to lead the meeting.

The MDP is considering sending the additional imports of Chinese garlic to North Korea either as food aid or at greatly reduced prices, fearing the imports might cause a price slump if dumped into the domestic garlic market.

An MDP official said, the idea of donating the garlic to Pyongyang is comparatively more plausible than reselling it to third countries. China opposes reselling the garlic, and the North has not bought any garlic from China yet.

China claims Korea was trying to renege on a deal struck last year to import 32,000 tons of garlic.