GOOD Guide: to North Korea, The North’s Economy: The Arduous March (sec. 3 of 10)
- Posted by: PaulFrench
- on April 10, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Estimating the extent of the D.P.R.K.’s economic decline is problematic—Pyongyang is simply not very generous with statistics. What we do know is that many hungry people are willing to risk their lives to try to cross the Yalu River, which separates China and the D.P.R.K.
There are also more measurable indicators that show how bad things are. North Korea’s 2006 national budget was just $2.9 billion—an estimated 16 percent of which was spent on the military. And in South Korea, where average incomes are now 15 times higher than in their northern neighbor, the 2005 GDP was $1.18 trillion, while the North’s was, at best, $40 billion. In fact, the gap between the two Koreas is widening in just about every applicable category—life expectancy, caloric intake, incidence of disease, and even average height.
Now the job of propping up the D.P.R.K. has fallen to China, which is the country’s largest donor of coal, electricity, gasoline, and grain. The D.P.R.K. now accounts for more than one-third of China’s international aid budget. China hopes that if it keeps North Koreans alive, they will stay in North Korea; a flood of millions of refugees is just too horrible for Beijing to contemplate.
DISCUSSION: 2 Comments
North Korea is a mess. My wife is Korean, and her Father was from North Korea until the Communist started the Korean War. My Father-in-Laws Father was killed by the communist because he was a land owner, an educated man, some what wealthy, and a direct descendant of the Lee Dynasty. My Father-in-Law never saw anyone else in his family outside of his mother and sister that escaped – they lost everything. North Korea is so closed that the people have no clue to what really is going on in the world. They hate the United States because they are told that we are the cause of all their woes -starvation, lack of things, etc, and that is all they know. It is sad because the South Korean people see the North Koreans as thier brothers and sisters, and there is nothing they can do to help them.
That 100 in the pic is 100 RMB YUAN the currency of CHINA not North Korea. The picture of Chairman Mao is a dead give away. What? you dont have Google? It is bad over there but we wont do anything about it after Iraq unless they attack the US or our interests (South Korea). WWIII is coming a lot of people think and you better thank God we are getting the training and military funding now.