N. Korean food supply short 1 million tons, grip on economy tightening: report

SEOUL, Feb. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's food supply will fall 1.17 million tons
short of demand this year, while Pyongyang is tightening control of the market
and economic activities, Seoul's Unification Ministry said Thursday.

North Korea produced 4.31 million tons of grain last year, up 7 percent from the
previous year thanks to improved weather conditions. But the country likely needs
5.48 million tons to feed its 2.3 million people, the ministry said in a report
submitted to the National Assembly's foreign affairs, trade and unification
committee.
The report also suggested China's increasing dominance of the North Korean
economy. North Korea's trade with China surged by 41.2 percent to US$2.78 billion
last year, while inter-Korean trade slowed to US$1.82 billion, up a mere 1.2
percent amid frozen relations, it said.
Strained economic conditions are pushing North Korea back into its old ways,
according to the report.
"Since late last year, North Korea has tightened social control and emphasized
past means of managing state affairs," it said.
Pyongyang intensified propaganda to stem the inflow of the capitalist culture, it
said, and restored a post-war reconstruction campaign first launched in the 1950s
to "solve food problems by our own efforts" and rebuild its frail infrastructure.
North Korea expanded street markets, raised wages and carried out deregulation to
jump-start its frail economy in 2002, but runaway inflation and international
trade sanctions on the communist state have crippled its efforts towards
marketization, according to a Seoul think tank.
"Since 2006, North Korea has begun partially controlling the market, and the
control has further strengthened since 2008," the Korea Institute for National
Unification said in a report last week.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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