Comments on: DPRK military strenghtens hold on economic interests

By: IFES

IFES — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:49:46 +0000

Thank you for catching the discrepency. Indeed, seveal zeros didn’t make the cut during translation.

North Korea exports between 2-3 million tons of coal, collecting approximately 200 million USD.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:10:37 +0000

If they can we’ve seriously underestimated Kim Jong-Il’s Military First Politics!!!!

By: Alan B. Barley

Alan B. Barley — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:18:24 +0000

Indeed there is something wrong with the numbers presented in this article. In the 2nd paragraph: “North Korea exports between 200-300 tons of coal each year”. In the 3rd paragraph: China’s trade minister signed a contract for 60,000 tons of coal from a military-run trading company. This one contract alone is 300 times larger than the nation’s entire annual output. I don’t think that the military can increase coal output by 30,000 per cent.

By: chris green

chris green — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:05:04 +0000

This suggests a price of between $65 and $100 a ton. However, if the corn was really worth just $1 million, then that would value the 60,000 tons of coal at just $17 a ton.

Quite a good deal for the Chinese, if true.

By: chris green

chris green — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:54:53 +0000

Note that due to a mistranslation by IFES from the original Korean, the profitability of coal starts to look disconcertingly good. I think we can all agree that if someone wanted to give us $2 billion for 300 tons of coal, we’d all become miners!

“Coal exports are worth around US$200 million per year to the North Korean economy, which exports 2 to 3 million tons of coal annually,” is how we reported it at Daily NK after reference to the original Korean.

Australian metallurgical coal currently sells for approximately US$130 per ton.