N. Korea`s 2008 trade hits record US$3.8 bln: report

SEOUL, May 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korean trade with the outside world, excluding
South Korea, hit a record US$3.8 billion last year, a report said Monday, despite
rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Trade jumped 29.7 percent compared with 2007, the Korea Trade-Investment
Promotion Agency, a South Korean trade agency, said in the report.
Last year, North Korea's exports rose 23 percent to $1.13 billion with imports
climbing 32.7 percent to $2.69 billion, the report said. The country still posted
a trade deficit of $1.56 billion for the year.
The report also showed that China's influence on North Korea's moribund economy
is rising quickly.
The communist nation exported $750 million worth of goods to China and imported
$2.03 billion last year.
"North Korea's trade with China hit a record last year and keeps growing," the
report said.
"In the face of the global economic slump and the North's rocket launch, North
Korea's external trade is expected to shrink this year. But, China's influence on
the North Korean economy is likely to grow further," it noted.
Inter-Korean relations have been frozen since the South Korean government of
President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 pledging to get tough on the
North's regime. Seoul has since halted shipments of food and other aid to
Pyongyang.
Tensions mounted further after North Korea fired a rocket on April 5, prompting
the U.N. Security Council to unanimously condemn the move. The North responded by
kicking out outside nuclear inspectors and quitting six-party denuclearization
talks.
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