North Korea's economy in 2008, before its latest falling out with the international community, grew to where it was three years ago, helped by a bumper harvest and foreign aid, South Korea's central bank said on Sunday. Even though the reclusive state's per capita income last year rose to around 1.2 million won ($930), it was still barely 5 percent of neighbouring South Korea.
"North Korea is presumed to have benefited from favourable weather for agriculture and international aid of oil and raw materials, mostly temporary supports. So it's hard to say its growth potential has improved much," the Bank of Korea said in a statement. It put growth in gross domestic product at 3.7 percent last year to 21.5 trillion won, or about 2 percent of the annual output of the South's economy which the North outstripped as late as the 1960s.
The economy fell 1.1 percent and 2.3 percent in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
North Korea's economy had grown by 6.2 percent in 1999, the start of a seven-year run of positive growth. But 2006 saw a return to economic decline as the North was hit by UN sanctions for defying the international community with its first nuclear test.
Tough new international sanctions, triggered by recent belligerence that included a second nuclear test in May, are likely to further squeeze the North Korean economy, analysts say.
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