South Korea, a key donor of humanitarian aid to North Korea, sent 350,000 tonnes of fertilizer and 500,000 tonnes of rice in 2005.

North Korea requested 500,000 tonnes of rice at cabinet-level talks in April this year and 300,000 tonnes of fertilizer in addition to 150,000 tonnes already shipped this year.

South Korea agreed to ship 200,000 tonnes of fertilizer but has yet to respond to the rice request.

Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok earlier made clear, while meeting opposition Grand National Party lawmakers, that a missile test "will have an impact on rice and fertilizer aid" from Seoul to Pyongyang.

North Korea has relied on outside help to feed its 23 million people for the past decade. Though the country has recovered from a famine that killed an estimated three million people in the mid 1990s, millions of North Koreans are still going hungry, according to Western aid groups.

South and North Korea, which fought a 1950-1953 war, have stepped up rapprochement for their reunification since a 2000 peace summit between their leaders.

Earlier, Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok, who handles relations with North Korea, said South Korea was trying to preserve its policy of engagement with North Korea despite the missile test fears by pushing ahead with already agreed-on projects such as the Kaesong industrial park.

The park just north of the inter-Korean borders hosts about a dozen South Korean manufacturers employing hundreds of North Koreans in the flagship project for inter-Korean economic cooperation.

Lee said, however, it would be difficult to expand cooperation while jitters persisted over the possible test launch.

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