North Korean economy suffers its steepest decline in two decades
2018-07-21 08:15:44 source：The Washington Post
July 20, 2018
SEOUL — North Korea’s economy saw its biggest decline in two decades amid tightening international sanctions last year, according to a new Bank of Korea estimate released Friday.
The estimates lend weight to the argument that the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has left the North Korean state in economic distress, although Pyongyang officials have repeatedly denied that sanctions led them to enter into negotiations with the United States this year.
North Korea’s real annual gross domestic product fell by 3.5 percent in 2017, the South Korean central bank said in a statement. The last time the bank observed a larger decline in the North’s economy was in 1997, when the GDP dropped by 6.7 percent as the country struggled through a devastating famine estimated to have killed millions.
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