South Korea has collected more than US$15 million overall in emergency aid to earthquake-hit Haiti, which exceeds its initial plan by 50 percent, the country's foreign ministry said Monday.

"More than US$7.8 million has been collected from the private sector, substantially surpassing our initial target of US$2.5 million, and that puts South Korea's overall aid for Haiti to surpass US$15 million," Kim Young-sun, the ministry spokesperson, said.

The South Korean government promised last week to increase its emergency aid to US$10 million for early relief works to Haiti, in which about 30 percent was supposed to come from public donation and the rest from the government's budget.

In addition, South Korea announced last week it will send 250 troops in early March to Haiti as part of the United Nations peacekeeping operation.

A 10-member government survey team will fly to Haiti this week to conduct field inspections to determine where to station the South Korean peacekeeping troops and what kind of tasks they will mainly be responsible for, ministry officials added.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2010)