Boosting its economy by giving up nuclear weapons.
That's the direction North Korea seems to be embarking on.
And now new figures show what the isolated regime stands to gain by opening up for trade with the outside world.
Kim Hyesung reports.
North Korea saw trade boost its real income by up to four-point-five percent over the last two decades.
According to the Bank of Korea Monday, North Korea's estimated gains from trade between 1996 and 2016, as a portion of its income, averaged between 3-point-6 and 4-point-5 percent.
The central bank said it used trade data on the North's trading partner countries sourced from the UN, the IMF and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.
In that twenty-year period, North Korea's trade volume grew three fold from 2-point-2 billion U.S. dollars to around 6-point-6 billion dollars.
The import penetration ratio, or the percentage of imports to domestic demand, which measures the openness of an economy, reached around 20 percent in 2016, up from the 13-to-18 percent range in 1996.
After a trend of growth, the import pentration ratio dropped starting in 2008 as international sanctions against the regime's nuclear weapons program took a toll.
The bank said the figure is lower than the OCED average of 36.6 percent... and South Korea's 33.9 percent, but that it is similar to the range of France and the UK's 22 percent.
North Korea's main trading partners are China, South Korea and Japan.
Given that the North is currently under tough international sanctions, the bank said these data show that North Korea's economy will benefit from trade, which will help boost its national income.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.
That's the direction North Korea seems to be embarking on.
And now new figures show what the isolated regime stands to gain by opening up for trade with the outside world.
Kim Hyesung reports.
North Korea saw trade boost its real income by up to four-point-five percent over the last two decades.
According to the Bank of Korea Monday, North Korea's estimated gains from trade between 1996 and 2016, as a portion of its income, averaged between 3-point-6 and 4-point-5 percent.
The central bank said it used trade data on the North's trading partner countries sourced from the UN, the IMF and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.
In that twenty-year period, North Korea's trade volume grew three fold from 2-point-2 billion U.S. dollars to around 6-point-6 billion dollars.
The import penetration ratio, or the percentage of imports to domestic demand, which measures the openness of an economy, reached around 20 percent in 2016, up from the 13-to-18 percent range in 1996.
After a trend of growth, the import pentration ratio dropped starting in 2008 as international sanctions against the regime's nuclear weapons program took a toll.
The bank said the figure is lower than the OCED average of 36.6 percent... and South Korea's 33.9 percent, but that it is similar to the range of France and the UK's 22 percent.
North Korea's main trading partners are China, South Korea and Japan.
Given that the North is currently under tough international sanctions, the bank said these data show that North Korea's economy will benefit from trade, which will help boost its national income.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.
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