Kim lays blame at officials for N. Korea's economic failures [View all]
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ripped into the performance of his Cabinet and fired a senior economic official he appointed a month ago, saying they'd failed to come up with new ideas to salvage an economy in decay.
The report by state media on Friday comes during the toughest period of Kim's nine-year rule. The diplomacy he had hoped would lift U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear program is stalemated, and pandemic border closures and crop-killing natural disasters last year deepened the damage to an economy broken by decades of policy failures, including a crippling famine in the 1990s.
The border closure caused trade volume with China, the main source of support for North Korea's economy, to drop by 75% in the first 10 months of the year. Raw materials shortages caused factory output to plunge to its lowest level since Kim took power in 2011, and prices of imported foods like sugar quadrupled, according to South Korea's spy agency.
Some analysts say the current challenges may set up conditions for an economic perfect storm in the North that destabilizes markets and triggers public panic and unrest.
Read more: https://kdhnews.com/business/kim-lays-blame-at-officials-for-n-koreas-economic-failures/article_80d00700-8270-5edd-875d-65f21ebec202.html
(Killeen Daily Herald)
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