Not much specific information is available, but the DPRK has signed economic agreements with Russia’s Amur and Sakhalin Regions.
According to RIA Novosti:
North Korea’s Foreign Trade Ministry and the authorities of Russia’s Amur region in the country’s southeast have signed an economic cooperation agreement, the Yonhap news agency reports.
“An agreement on trade and economic cooperation was signed between the DPRK ministry of Foreign Trade and the Amur Regional Government of the Russian Federation,” Yonhap cited Pyongyang’s KCNA state news agency as saying Monday.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, the accord was signed Monday during the visit of Yuri Trutnev, a Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Putin’s official envoy to Russia’s Far Eastern Region.
As part of his North Korea trip, Yuri Trutnev met with the Cabinet’s Vice President Ro Tu-chol and reportedly shared his views on a broader economic cooperation between the two nations, among other issues.
The agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang is another step towards closer economic partnership in the Far Eastern region, after the Amur territory on China’s northern border signed a fraternity and trade deal with Korea’s South Pyongan province in 2011.
A similar economic cooperation agreement was signed last week between Pyongyang and the local government of Russia’s Sakhalin region.
Voice of Russia reports the following:
North Korean’s Foreign Trade Ministry and the government of Russia’s far-eastern Amur region have signed an agreement on trade and economic cooperation, the Yonhap news agency reports with reference to the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).
The agreement was signed on Monday during a visit to Pyongyang of a Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary in the Far-Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev.
No further details have been immediately available.
A wide range of matters, connected with the development of political, trade-and-economic cooperation will be discussed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) by Yuri Trutnev, Russia’s Vice-Premier and Russia’s plenipotentiary presidential representative in the Far Eastern Federal District.
An official at the Russian Embassy to the DPRK said that Trutnev would arrive here by air on Monday by a special flight at the head of a Russian delegation for a three-day visit, TASS reports.
Apart from talks with DPRK officials, the Vice-Premier will attend a ceremony marking the handover of a large consignment of fire-engines to the Korean side.
The delegation will also lay flowers to the Liberation Monument here. The Monument bears an inscription “Eternal glory to the Great Soviet Army that liberated the Korean People from the yoke of Japanese militarists and opened up the road for the Korean people to freedom and independence!”.
The delegation leader will be accompanied by Primorsky Territory Governor Vladimir Miklushevsky, Khabarovsk Territory Governor Vyacheslav Shport, and Amur Region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako.
In March this year, the DPRK was visited by President Rustam Minnikhanov of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as by Alexander Galushka, Russian Minister for the Development of the Far East. The latter attended a meeting of the Co-Chairmen of the Intergovernmental Commission for Trade-and-Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the DPRK as head of the Russian part of the Commission.
Moscow and Pyongyang actively strengthen economic contacts of late. The delegations of Russia and the DPRK attended a meeting the international “Organization for Cooperation of Railways. It is reckoned that the Organization’s main goals are to develop international freight and passenger transportation, and establish a Common Railway Transportation Space in Eurasia. This year the Organization’s conference is being attended for the first time by South Korea as well.
Tense relations between Pyongyang and Seoul are keeping on at the political level. Nevertheless, Russia is calling on the two countries to reach agreement between each other and take part in implementing the project for linking up the inter-Korean Railway and the Trans-Siberian Mainline Railway (Trans-Sib).
Railway transport is one of important areas of cooperation between Russia and the DPRK. A ceremony marking the completion of the upgrading of the railway section running from the Russian station of Khasan to the North Korean city of Rajin was held in the Republic in September last year. Work has been also completed to bring into being a general-purpose trans-shipment terminal in Rajin the principal port in the Rason trade-and-economic zone.
The upgrading of the infrastructure of the Khasan-Rajin railway leg is viewed as the pilot segment of the reconstruction of the entire Trans-Korea Railway. In prospect, when railway communication from the South Korean port of Pusan via the DPRK to Russia is established in full, an opportunity will open up to reorient to Russia’s Trans-Sib a considerable part of goods, which are currently shipped now via a trans-oceanic seaway from South Korea to Europe.
The possibility is being explored for inviting South Korean businessmen to participate in developing the railway transportation infrastructure o the DPRK, including port facilities.
Here is some comprehensive analysis by 38 North.
Here is some more analysis at the Hankoyreh.
Read the full stories here:
Russia, North Korea Strike Economic Cooperation Deal
RIA Novosti
2014-4-29
N Korea, Russia’s Amur region seal regional cooperation deal
Voice of Russia
2014-4-29
