May 03, 2013 10:54
North Korea now relies almost exclusively on China due to international sanctions and the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, but trade with Beijing is also dwindling, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The closure of the Kaesong complex means a loss of US$90 million annually. But China is being more active than ever before in implementing UN sanctions and showing "impatience with Pyongyang's increasing sabor-rattling," the paper said.
As a result, Chinese exports to the North shrank 13.8 percent in the first quarter of this year to $720 million. Overall trade volume between the two countries had grown from $3.4 billion in 2010 to $5.9 billion in 2012 but is now on the decline.
China has a huge share in the North Korean economy and "about two-thirds of North Korea's 351 joint ventures with foreign partners are Chinese," the daily said.
The decline in exports between the two countries is likely to go on. The paper quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping at a forum in early April saying, "No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains," which it said was a "veiled warning to Pyongyang."
China has also tightened customs inspections of North Korean cargo traveling. Amid the tightened control, North Korea only sent goods to be displayed at a tourism expo held April 28 to May 1 in Dandong in China. In a similar exhibition last year, 300 North Koreans from 100 companies took part.
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