Caritas Internationalis has decided to expand its aid programme in North Korea after the charity's representatives came to a new agreement with local officials on its medical and food distribution in the country.

Under the new agreement, CI will now expand its existing medical and food-producing facilities in the country, reports the Union of Catholic Asian News.

Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of Daejeon, president of Caritas Corea, led a 10-member team at the end of March.

"North Korean officials told me they were ashamed and disgraced to let us know the real situation of some places, but they did," Bishop You said at an April 3 press conference in Seoul. He added that the North Koreans were in desperate need of aid from CI.

The invitation to visit North Korea came from the country's National Economic Cooperative Association and follows five meetings between representatives of the NECA and CI since September 2006.

During the trip, the CI team visited a general hospital, an orphanage, a food processing factory and a seed-potato production facility in Pyongyang. Bishop You said they were all old and in poor condition with the exception of the seed-potato production facility.

Under the latest agreement between the CI team and the North Korean association, CI will now provide medical equipment for the hospital, equipment for the seed-potato production facility, and medical support for clinics in a rural area throughout 2007.

The construction of the seed-potato facility in September 2005 was supported by Caritas Corea and is now, according to Bishop You, the largest facility of its kind in North Korea.

According to a Caritas Corea official, more than $32 million worth of food, medicine and other essential items were distributed throughout North Korea by CI between July 1995 and 2005. But CI conceded that in 2006 it had failed to distribute any aid in North Korea, citing "aid fatigue" as the main difficulty.

Following the latest agreement with North Korean officials, the CI team will work with North Korea in building another seed-potato production facility in a rural area and will expand medical support to hospitals outside Pyongyang.

Joining the press conference were Maryknoll Father Gerard Hammond, steering committee chairperson of CI's North Korea Country Group; Father Peter Pai Young-ho, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea (CBCK); and Father Michael Lee Chang-jun, secretary of Caritas Corea.

Father Hammond, Korea regional superior of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, told UCA News that it was significant that South Koreans and foreigners had visited North Korea as a group. South Koreans and other foreigners would usually visit North Korea separately, he said. "But this time we could visit places North Korea used to avoid showing visitors."

Father Hammond also said both parties made sure that CI's aid would go to poor North Koreans such as children, patients and pregnant women.

CI is a confederation of 162 official Catholic relief, development and social-service organisations in more than 200 countries and territories.