ROK report on DPRK military spending

According to Yonhap:

North Korea has increased its defense spending by 16 percent over the past five years despite a moribund economy, Seoul’s defense ministry said Tuesday.

The communist North is presumed to have spent US$10.2 billion for national defense last year in accordance with the calculation based on purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, the ministry said, citing figures by the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA).

The amount is about 16 percent more than the $8.77 billion in 2009, the ministry said, adding that Pyongyang spent $10.1 billion on its military last year.

The world’s most reclusive nation has not made public the exact amount of its defense budget.

“North Korea said in April that it spent some 15.9 percent of the total budget last year for national defense, which translates into a mere $1.15 billion. But the amount was solely for maintenance and does not include costs for its military build-up and investment,” a ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

South Korea’s defense budget last year came to $32.5 billion, some three times larger than that of its communist neighbor.

North Korea has been pushing for its military-first policy at the expense of its moribund economy. Its gross national income stood at 33.8 trillion won ($30.9 billion) in 2014, compared with South Korea’s 1,441 trillion won, according to the data by Statistics Korea.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea’s defense spending rises 16 pct over 5 yrs: Seoul ministry
Oh Seok-min
Yonhap
2015-4-14

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