North Korean economy shows signs of revival

The North Korean economy has shown a positive trend for the first time in the last 3 years. According to the Central Bank of South Korea, North Korea's real GDP (adjusted for inflation) in 2011 was 0.8%, Finmarket reports.

The economic growth followed two years of recession. According to South Korea's Central Bank, the last time, when the real product of the North grew, was  in 2008, by 3.1%, but a two-year recession occurred afterwards: in 2009, the GDP dropped by 0.9%, and by 0.5% in 2010.

The modest growth in 2011 was achieved primarily due to positive changes in the agricultural and construction sectors, as well as in forestry.

At the same time, the figures in the mining and manufacturing industries, which form the lion's share of the GDP (36.5%) were more ambiguous. The extraction of non-metallic minerals fell by 1.7%, coal production increased by 2%, while the volume of processing industry decreased by 3%.

The total volume of the gross national income of North Korea is estimated at about 29 billion dollars (about 1.2 per thousand per capita). For comparison, South Korea's GDP is 1.2 trillion dollars (about 23 thousand per capita).

Earlier this year, it was reported that the industrial production in North Korea increased 1.2 times over the first 20 days in 2012 as compared to the same period last year.

The  state news agency of the country said that the coal industry produced 12,000 tons more coal during this period than in the past year. The production volume of light industry had a 1.4-fold increase, the scale of transportations increased by 12%. The North Korean authorities said that impressive results had been achieved in chemical, engineering, steel and food industries. Progress has been made in the implementation of major projects, including the construction of a residential quarter near the center of Pyongyang.

The state-run NKorean agency also said that North Korean labor groups responded enthusiastically to New Year calls from the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and the Central Military Committee of the WPK and to the tasks set in the field of economics in an editorial published on January 1 in three leading newspapers in the country.

However, independent experts can not check the status of North Korea's economy.