Thursday, August 24, 2017

Is North Korea's Economy Booming?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reacts as he inspects a test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile with Ri Pyong-chol (right). Photo: KCNA via Reuters

Asia Times: What sanctions? North Korea economy grows at fastest pace in 17 years

North Korean GDP grew 3.9% in 2016, according to the central bank of South Korea

North Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in 17 years in 2016, South Korea’s central bank said on Friday, despite the isolated country facing international sanctions aimed at curbing its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in North Korea last year rose 3.9% from the previous year when the economy contracted due to a drought and low commodity prices, the Bank of Korea said.

The expansion, driven by mining and energy, marked the biggest rise since a 6.1 percent gain in 1999.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The North Korean economy may be booming, but then I read these stories .... North Korea soldiers go without food after drought hits crops (UPI).

2 comments:

James said...

Well when you go from .0000000001 to start with, 3.9% is a helluva boom.

B.Poster said...

The story from the UPI can be dismissed as untrue and is very respectfully not worth the bandwidth it is taking up. Very respectfully I'm not even sure why anyone would even bother to read it. To believe such things is a bit like believing in flying unicorns.

Since the soldier always starves last and starving soldiers mean an unstable government that is about to fall and their is no evidence of such things in North Korea, the story is false. As to what UPI is up to in pushing this, I do not know.

Perhaps this is US (un)intelligence at work. If POTUS or any US leader were to take such things in consideration as somehow true, we'd be in a very bad situation.