Yonhap
11/13/2007
North Korea Tuesday expressed confidence in the recovery of its ailing economy devastated by years of mismanagement, economic embargoes and floods as multilateral talks on the North’s nuclear disarmament make progress.
“The circumstances for our revolution are changing in a very favorable way,” Rodong Sinmun, the organ of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in an editorial. “The international prestige of the country is rising extraordinarily, and our economy is vigorously bouncing back with enormous energy.”
Pyongyang’s upbeat mood comes as Washington is moving to take the communist country off its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and to lift its trading ban on condition that the North completes the disablement of its nuclear facilities and declares its nuclear programs by the end of the year under an agreement signed in early October.
North Korea started disabling its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, in early November.
In return for its actions, North Korea will receive 1 million tons of energy assistance from the other parties of the deal, including South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
The North has already received 100,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea and China. The end of the application of the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act to the North will allow the communist state to participate in international economic activities.
“Only when we thoroughly achieve the combatant work in front of us this year, can we make a breakthrough for a new march toward the construction of economic power and decisively engage in next year’s combat,” the newspaper said.
Recent reports have painted a bleak picture of the North Korean economy. According to figures released by South Korea’s Bank of Korea, the North’s economy probably shrank 1.1 percent in 2006 compared to a year earlier because of the weakness of its agricultural and construction sectors. The decease in North Korea’s gross domestic product was a reversal of the 3.8 percent expansion in 2005 and the 6.2 percent rise in 1999.
