North Korean Grain production up 5.3% in 2005

According to Financial Express:

North Korea’s grain production rose 5.3 per cent to 4.54 million tonnes in 2005, helped by better harvests and fertilizer shipments from South Korea, South Korean data showed today.

The 2005 harvest was still far short of the impoverished country’s annual demand, estimated at six million tonnes, South Korea’s unification ministry said in a report. North Korea received 500,000 tonnes of rice from South Korea last year, together with humanitarian food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) and other international agencies.

UN’s food aid to North Korea, however, ended on December 31 after Pyongyang said it no longer needed emergency shipments from international agencies.  Instead, Pyongyang called for long-term development assistance to end its chronic food shortages. But some experts regard the shift to development-oriented assistance as a tactic to dodge the WFP’s request for transparency in food distribution. 

Share

Comments are closed.