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Chuncheon City is promoting sales of imported coffee, sending letters to local businesses asking for cooperation and offering coffee deals on the city¡¯s homepage.
The reason for the unusual move? Chuncheon is trying to raise money for its sister city, the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where -- even more unusually -- a Korean War veterans museum will be built. Under the slogan ¡°This coffee is imported by the Korean War Veterans Campaign Club,¡± Chuncheon has sold over W130 million (some US$126,000) worth of the Ethiopian coffee and earned profits of W3 million in a short eight months.
The museum will cost about W150 million to build, and Chuncheon is confident of raising the whole amount by the end of this year.
Ethiopia, it must be remembered, sent more than 6,000 soldiers to Korea during the Korean War. Once one of the richest nations on the African continent, it has since the 1960 become mired in poverty, partly due to the slow pace of its industrialization
Ethiopian soldiers who survived the Korean War and the families of those who died have set up a Korean village near Addis Ababa, and the veterans museum will be located 10 minutes away by car from the Korean village.
(Kim Chang-woo, cwkim@chosun.com )
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