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Analysis of North Korea’s Foreign Trade and Logistics Infrastructure
From 1970 to 1990, North Korea’s trade mainly carried out maritime trade through ports for countries around the world. This trend is due to UN sanctions against North Korea, and after the third nuclear test in 2016, North Korea gradually became isolated from the outside world as it expanded to include maritime sanctions in the form of comprehensive sanctions targeting an unspecified majority of North Korea. The logistics structure of North Korea is due to the logistics infrastructure left during the Japanese colonial period in the 1950s and the political structure of the country, with railroads being the main source of logistics and passenger transportation, and roads being secondary. North Korea faced rapid deterioration and lack of facilities after 1990 due to the lack of investment in facilities and improvement of the operating system despite the advanced logistics infrastructure and operating system compared to the South. In particular, the power shortage in North Korea hindered the operation of the railroad and accelerated the aging of the railroad facilities, which has continued to this day. In the 2010s, 96% of cargo transportation in North Korea’s logistics infrastructure depended on railroads and roads, and ports that were developed until the 1980s have deteriorated with little investment since the economic crisis of the 1990s. Although some ports have been developed since 2010, North Korea’s east and west coasts are separated and there is no function of shipping to connect ports, so it did not have a significant impact on enhancing the nation’s port capacity. As North Korea’s trade dependence on China has increased, North Korea has largely relied on land transport, except for some cargoes that are advantageous for marine transport, such as coal. This structure again leads to a decrease in investment in ports, and the current vicious cycle of causing problems with North Korean port facilities is repeated. In this study, North Korea’s land and marine trade logistics system such as railway, road, and shipping and the trend of foreign trade due to sanctions against North Korea were analyzed. Through this analysis, it is planned to be used as a basis for developing the routes and scenarios through which major nuclear items can be transferred in the event of denuclearization of North Korea in the future.
