North Korea saw its economy contract 3.5 percent last year — its worst showing in two decades — as it was hit by sanctions over its weapons programs, the South Korean central bank said yesterday.
It was a sharp reversal from 3.9 percent growth in 2016, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said.
The UN Security Council last year banned the North’s main exports — coal and other mineral resources, fisheries and textile products — to cut off its access to hard currency in response to its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As a result, the North’s mining industry fell slumped 11 percent, the BOK said, after growing 8.4 percent in 2016.
Manufacturing output fell 6.9 percent — down from 4.8 percent growth — while agriculture and fisheries slipped 1.3 percent, after also expanding in 2016.
“Sanctions against the North were much more intense last year,” a BOK official told journalists, adding that bad weather was also a factor.
Exports fell 37.2 percent to US$1.77 billion, while imports rose 1.8 percent to US$3.78 billion.
Inter-Korean trade collapsed 99.7 percent year-on-year to a mere US$900,000 after the South shut down the joint Kaesong industrial complex in the North amid tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development.
The North does not publish economic statistics of its own, leaving outside estimates — which by definition are based on limited information — as the only available figures for its financial performance.
The North had a per-capita gross national income of 1.46 million won (US$1,011), while the South’s was 23 times higher, the BOK said.
“The UN imposed fresh sanctions against the North in August and December, and those will make a serious dent in the North Korean economy this year,” another BOK official said.
“Especially, trade with China which accounts for 95 percent of the North’s overall transactions, fell sharply” in the first half of 2018, he added.
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