Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein Asia Press reported a couple of weeks back about state crackdowns on illegal alcohol sales. It’s interesting that the move is highlighted as an economic measure, to push down the demand for grain: In mid-November, a reporting partner in Yanggang Province told ASIAPRESS that the authorities had handed down an order saying that there is a complete ban on illegal alcohol manufacturing, which they referred to as an “anti-state act.” “The authorities handed down the order on November 4 saying that because most (homemade alcohols) are made of corn, the act of manu ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein Where does the North Korean economy stand, and where is it going? Kim Jong Un spent some of the last few days of 2023 at the 9th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Worker’s Party Central Committee that was held in Pyongyang. The meeting notes published by KCNA serve as a good guide to the economic and political priorities of the regime as well as its assessment of the year that passed. Overall, Kim Jong Un appears to be moving closer to accomplishing his vision of a tightly state-directed and overseen economic system, with some flexibility for the actors within it. We ..read more

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein Daily NK has reported on several occasions on Chinese fishing activities in North Korean waters. Chinese fishers purchase fishing rights from the North Korean government, a practice clearly banned under the current sanctions regime. China has been cracking down on this over the past few months and on sales of seafood from North Korea overall, according to the outlet: The Chinese government has recently stepped up surveillance and inspections of ships passing through North Korean waters and has even started to crackdown on the sale of North Korean seafood ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein Early this morning local time, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in the Russian town of Vladivostok. There, he is scheduled to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Aside from the geopolitical situation and their political ties, the two are expected to discuss expanding North Korean weapons exports to Russia. What could this mean for the North Korean economy? The country’s military industry is an economic sector of significant size both in terms of production and employment. A radical increase in weapons exports to Russia could mean a general boost ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein Recently, the BBC became one of few global outlets to succeed in interviewing ordinary North Koreans inside the country about the food situation. The image is dire: starvation, empty markets and other signs of severe food shortages. In the past few years when reports of food scarcity have surfaced from North Korea, market prices have given remarkably little credence to the claims. Not so at the moment. Comparing current prices levels with historic ones, the overall picture suggests that prices since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic (and the North Korean gove ..read more

The following article was published in East Asia Forum Quarterly‘s June issue, and is re-published here with permission.  On the surface, sanctions seem to have had little impact on North Korea’s behaviour. At the time of writing, the world is waiting for the launch of a new North Korean military spy satellite that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un announced on 19 April 2023. North Korea is under one of the harshest multilateral sanctions regimes of any country in the world. But the country still circumvents sanctions regularly through complex smuggling operations at which it is by now ver ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein For the first time since 2020, Russia recently reported oil exports to North Korea in their official trade statistics. These numbers obviously do not include the unknown but likely large quantities of oil that the country buys from Russia under the radar, through smuggling. According to the official numbers, Russia had exported 67,300 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea by April, the first deliveries reported to the U.N. since Moscow said it shipped 255 barrels of refined oil to the North in August 2020. Under U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang’s nuclea ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein North Korea–China trade is steadily growing, perhaps slowly moving back to its normal  before Covid-19 -“Maximum pressure” sanctions in 2016–2017. According to the latest numbers, trade continues to grow: Chinese outbound shipments to the isolated country surged 69% year-on-year to $166 million in April, data released by China’s General Administration of Customs showed. The top export items in terms of value were processed hair and wool used in wigs, worth about $11.6 million, and diammonium hydrogen phosphate, a widely used fertiliser, worth $8.84 milli ..read more

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein At this point, non-materializing reports about the China–North Korea opening for full traffic are too many to count. A recent story by SCMP (link here) claims both truck trade and tourism from China to North Korea will start in one month. But “sources briefed by officials on both sides” is an acknowledgment that the report is not based on direct sources. And as has seemed the case for North Korea since Covid-19, plans for policy changes can often change and often do. Judging by the policy pattern, there doesn’t seem to be an overall strategy or timeplan ..read more

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein After a very long hiatus over the pandemic, China’s new ambassador to North Korea has taken up his post in Pyongyang, AP reports: Wang Yajun will help in the development of the traditional friendship between the “close neighbors sharing mountains and rivers,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing. China is North Korea’s main source of economic aid and political support, but interactions have been disrupted by travel restrictions imposed in an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The ambassador’s posting comes as North Kore ..read more