SEOUL: A prediction has been made that the UN ban on North Korean mineral exports will cost the country more than four percentage points of economic growth.
Following the disclosure of a UN draft resolution against Pyongyang that included the measure, the Seoul-based North Korea Resources Institute(NKRI) on Friday pointed to the fact that the mineral industry accounts for 13 percent of the North Korean economy.
The institute said an all-out suspension of the North’s mineral exports will result in the fall of the regime’s economic growth rate by four-point-three percentage points, when 2014 is used as the base year for the prediction.
Last year, North Korea exported one-point-32 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of minerals to China, making up as much as 52-point-four percent of its entire exports to China for the whole of 2015.
The institute predicted prohibiting such exports will cause a setback in the North’s efforts to find sources of cash overseas. It also expected that around 64-thousand North Korean workers engaged in the country’s coal and iron ore industries will lose their jobs once the ban is implemented.
