VOA:
It continues to be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea in March for conducting its fourth nuclear test and launching a long range rocket earlier this year.
While prices for essential goods in the North remain stable, there are reports that business is stagnating at the economic development zones set up to attract foreign investment.
Analyst Lim Eul-chul with Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far East Studies told VOA’s Korean Service that economic activity in two development zones near the Chinese border has deceased significantly in the last five months.
“The Mubong Economic Development Zone and the Onsung Island Economic Development Zone established detailed development plans and China had planned to invest in these areas. However, since the international community imposed sanctions against North Korea, and especially after China participated in the sanctions, such movements have been stopped,” said Lim.
The lack of international investment is, to some degree, the result of the U.N. sanctions that place increased financial restrictions on companies that do business with North Korea and U.S. sanctions that authorize the seizure of assets from international organizations and individuals involved with banned North Korean industries like mining and banking.
But Adam Cathcart, an East Asia expert at Britain’s Leeds University notes that even without sanctions, international companies are reluctant to invest in North Korea’s economic development zones because they do “not provide enough infrastructure.”
