South Korea plans to spend more than $2.0 billion dollars over the next five years on buying hundreds of new missiles to cope with threats from North Korea, reports said Tuesday. President Lee Myung-Bak at a ministerial meeting on April 28 approved a 2.5 trillion won ($2.14 billion) defence ministry project to buy 500-600 new missiles, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said. Yonhap news agency carried a similar report. The defence ministry declined to confirm the reports, saying only that South Korea “agrees on the necessity of bolstering its missile capability”. The meeting followed North Korea’s long-range rocket launch on April 13 and its repeated threats against the South’s conservative government. The defence ministry made its request “given the mounting threat of provocations from the North since (new leader) Kim Jong-Un took power”, Chosun Ilbo quoted a government source as saying.