North Korea plans to attend an annual meeting of central bank governors at the Bank for International Settlements next year but is not sending anyone to this year's, a central bank official said on Thursday. The annual gathering at the BIS in Basel, Switzerland, is one of the largest annual gatherings of monetary officials with over 50 central banks represented.
"Unfortunately this time we are not coming to Basel because our governor is very busy. So next time, next year we are planning to come to Basel," Kim Myong Su, deputy director of North Korea's central bank, told Reuters by phone from Beijing where he is based.
North Korea is shunned by much of the world for its highly authoritarian regime and was in the spotlight again on Thursday after a South Korean news agency said it had fired up to two short-range missiles off its west coast. A US government spokesman said North Korea's missile test activity was "not constructive".
The country, which is the focus of a multinational diplomatic effort to curb its nuclear ambitions, attended the BIS annual meetings in 2004 and 2005 - boosting expectations that it was preparing to extend economic reforms begun in 2002.
At the 2005 meeting, central bank governor Kim Wan Su and Kim Myong Su had discussions with various other central bankers, including Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui and the then-governor of South Korea's central bank, Park Seung.
The Stalinist state has only one major official trading partner, China, but Beijing has moved closer to the more developed economy of South Korea in recent years, making it hard for the North to secure foreign cash.
Comments
Comments are closed.