how available are dprk statistics?

8/3/2019 How Available Are DPRK Statistics?

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2010Koreas Econom


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CONTENTS

Part I: Overview and MacroeconomicIssues

Koreas Economic Prospects and ChallengesSubir Lall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Koreas Economic Stability and Resilience inTime of Crisis

Lee Jun-kyu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Republic of Korea and the North PacificEconomy: After the Great Panic of 2008

Jeffrey Shafer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Part II: Financial Institutions and Markets

Housing Policy, Mortgage Markets, and HousingOutcomes in KoreaKim Kyung-hwan and Cho Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Financial Crises and East Asias Financial Coop-erationPark Young-joon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Part III: External IssuesU.S.-Korea Economic Relations:

A (Historical) View from SeoulKim Wonky ng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

A Washington Perspective

Deena Magnall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Part V: North Koreas EconomicDevelopment and External Relations

The Rocky Road for Modernizing the North Ko-rean Economy

Bradley Babson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

How Available are DPRK Statistics? Lee Suk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

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52 THE KOREA ECONOMIC INSTITUTE

HOW AVAILABLE ARE DPRK STATISTICS?

By Lee Suk

Introduction

A common problem facing students of the economy of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)is the shortage of available statistics. It is extremelychallenging to procure DPRK data, and even the fewavailable statistics are in many cases fragmented, dis-continuous, and seemingly unreliable. In consequence,economics literature tends to assume that there are fewDPRK statistics available, and followers of events inthe DPRK have become accustomed to understand-

ing the DPRK economy without statistics or usingsecondary sources of estimated data. For the past twodecades, however, DPRK economic situations andenvironments have fundamentally changed, whichcasts doubt on whether available DPRK data are asscarce as generally conceived.

An important characteristic of the DPRK economysince the 1990s is that it has degenerated into anaid-dependent economy. Since 1995, the country hasreceived a large amount of international assistance,and it has become home to the United Nations and

other international organizations dispatching outsideobservers for on-site inspection to Pyongyang andother provinces. In such circumstance it is natural thatthe international community has actively requestedand come into possession of DPRK data. Even withinthe DPRK, assembling and providing data to theinternational organizations operating in Pyongyangwere necessary in order to maintain its impoverishedeconomy. Note that this circumstance has lasted for 15years. This suggests that an increasing amount of dataon the DPRK may exist in the outside world.

If this inference is correct, the availability problemof DPRK data might be addressed in a manner dif-ferent from before. In the past, the situation was thatthe outside world had few reliable statistics aboutthe DPRK. In the present, however, the question is

whether students of the DPRK economy are capableof finding those statistics that may exist somewherein the world outside of the DPRK. But how realistic isthe above inference? To answer this question we willexamine how the availability of DPRK statistics hasactually changed from the time of the foundation of the country in 1945 to the present day.

Announcements of Socialist Statistics from1945 to the Early 1960s

Outsiders perceive the availability of DPRK statisticsto differ greatly by periods. Of the different periods,the time from 1945 to the early 1960s is distinctive intwo respects. First, official DPRK statistics were re-leased regularly, both domestically and internationally.Even though the contents of published data were rela-tively poor from the market economys perspective, avariety of statistical channels conveyed official data, asdiscussed below. Second, the forms of statistics weredifferent from those of a market economy. As in othersocialist economies, the DPRK statistical authoritiesannounced official data according to three types:

physical quantity, index number, and growth rate.Much important information was released in the formsof index numbers or growth rates rather than by physicalquantities, making the statistical contents vague.

An important source for official statistics during thisperiod was the DPRK Central Yearbook published bythe DPRK Central News Agency. It had a statisticalappendix in its annual volume, introducing variousofficial statistics ( Table 1 ). The statistics were usuallyclassified into seven or eight categories: major socialand economic indicators, population, industry, agri-culture, construction, transportation and communica-tions, and culture. In many cases they were presentedin a time series format. And these data were officiallyconfirmed after statistical correction and revision. 1

1. For the basic features of DPRK statistics during this period, see Suk Lee, DPRK Statistics: Availability and Reliability [inKorean] (Seoul: Korea Institute for National Unication, 2007).


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NORTH KOREAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS 53

Official statistics were also found in many other publi-cations, including academic journals, government andparty documents, and political leaders speeches andwritings. Indeed the DPRK government published andcirculated many official documents about its economicplans and their outcomes that revealed official statis-

tics on the countrys economic situation. The Com-munist Party convention papers and the proceedingsof Supreme Peoples Assembly were also released,

providing official statistics on the countrys political,economic, and social phenomena. Finally, importantparts of those statistics were aggregated and publishedin the official DPRK statistics volume in both Koreanand English in 1961. 2

Those statistics available in this period have beensystematically compiled by many South Korean in-stitutes. In 1996, for instance, the ROK Ministry of

2. DPRK Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Returns of National Economy of the DPRK (194660) (Pyongyang: ForeignLanguage Publishing House, 1961).

Table 1: Contents of the DPRK Central Yearbook Statistical Appendix

Classifications Contents

General Composition of population by social groups, major economic indicators,share of socialist economic sector, growth of employees, growth of laborproductivity, growth of monetary wage, price index

Industry Composition of industrial production by economic sector, growth of industrial production, share of consumption, goods and means of production in industrial production, growth of production by industrialsector, growth of industrial production by province, growth of majorindustrial goods, per capita production of major industrial goods,industrial invention and rationalization

Agriculture Agricultural area, agricultural area by land category, agricultural area bymanagerial category, agricultural area by province, agriculturalcooperativization, size of agricultural cooperatives, state farms and farmmachinery stations, cultivated area, composition of cultivated area bycrops, total agricultural production, orchard area and fruit production,mulberry area and cocoon production, number of livestock

Construction State investment for construction, state investment for construction byeconomic sector, housing construction

Transportation Growth of various methods of freight transportation, growth of variousfreight circulations, growth of passenger transportation, postal service

Commerce Retail sales by state and cooperatives, growth of retail sales, compositionof retail sales by ownership, share of food and nonfood goods in totalretail sales by state and cooperatives, growth of retail sales by majorgoods, state retail price index of major goods, number of state andcooperative retails shops, growth of state and individual purchases

Culture Number of students, number of schools, students, faculty for primaryeducation; number of schools, students, faculty for higher education and

universities; cultural facilities, publications, doctors and health facilities,resorts and hospices

Source: DPRK Central Yearbook [in Korean] (Pyongyang: DPRK Central News Agency,1959), 322 38.


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Unification put together a volume of DPRK statisticsby compiling, reviewing, and rearranging all thosedata. 3 Some nongovernment South Korean institutesalso collected official DPRK publications contain-ing various statistics, including those from academic

journals and Communist Party convention papers, thus

making them available in a compiled format.

Statistical Blackout between the Early 1960sand the Mid-1990s

The regular publication of DPRK statistics came to anabrupt halt in the early 1960s. The Statistical Appendixof the DPRK Central Yearbook began to disappear in1960, and no statistical data were found in any DPRKpublications after 1963. This statistical blackout con-tinued until the mid-1990s. Consequently students of the DPRK economy had to rely on secondary sources

of estimated data to analyze the countrys situation.4

It is true that some DPRK figures were still availableeven during this period. For example, Kim Il-sungquoted many figures in his speeches and writings. TheDPRK Central Yearbook also published some articlescontaining such figures. But it is impossible to callthese figures statistics because they have no specifiedstatistical information at all. These figures do, how-ever, show many interesting characteristics. First, if thefigures are in the form of physical quantity, very vagueadjectives or verbs are placed either before or after

them: more than x tons, production campaign toachieve x tons won a shining victory, occupying theproduction fortress of x tons are three such examples.Thus, even if these figures do exist, it is impossible topinpoint the exact physical volume.

Second, most of these figures are in the form of anindex number or a growth rate. This means that theyare meaningful only when the physical volumes of the referential years to the figures are known. But

the referential years physical volumes are usuallyunknown, and thus the figures exact meanings can-not be specified.

Third, in some cases the referential years physicalvolumes are known. But even in these cases, most of

the newly presented figures are not consistent with thereferential years physical volumes. Lets assume, forexample, that the countrys steel production in 1945and in 1950 is known to be one million tons and twomillion tons, respectively. In this case, what happensif the DPRK government says that this years steelproduction is three times more than that of 1945, andtwice more than that of 1950? If 1945 is taken as thereferential year, this years production must be threemillion tons; and if 1950 is the referential year, itshould be four million tons. Hence, even though thegovernment presents data about this years steel pro-

duction, in reality it means nothing. In this context it issafe to say that, even though some DPRK figures areavailable for the period between the early 1960s andthe mid-1990s, they are far from being statistics.

There is one exception: the DPRK government pro-vided its demographic data to the outside world inthe 1980s and the early 1990s. 5 In the early 1980s,for example, the DPRK government made some de-mographic data public, possibly aiming for financialassistance from the United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) for carrying out a census of the countrys

population. In 1983 the DPRK published in Englisha statistical report, The Health Statistics of the Demo-cratic Peoples Republic of Korea, which provideddemographic statistics such as birthrates, death rates,and average life span. It also published a revised reportin 1987. 6 And in the late 1980s the DPRK governmentmade in principle an agreement with the UNFPA onfinancial assistance for the first DPRK populationcensus of 1993, providing its major demographicstatistics for the period 194687 ( Table 2 ).

3. North Korean Economic Statistics (Seoul: Ministry of Unication, 1996).

4. Those secondary sources include South Korean government institutes, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and UnitedNations organizations.

5. One could say that there was another exception: the Pyongyang media regularly broadcast ofcial statistics on state budgetrevenue and expenditure. In fact, this announcement of budget statistics has continued to the present day except for some years inthe late 1990s and in the 2000s.

6. Nicholas Eberstadt and Judith Banister, The Population of North Korea, Korea Research Monograph no. 17 (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1992), 78.


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The data submitted in the 1980s are in many aspectsspecial. First, the scope of the data is more extensivethan any other data previously released by the North.They included statistics revealing the countrys basicdemographic structure: age, location, sex, occupation,death and birth, expected life span, size of household,

marriage and divorce, education, and health. Second,they were presented in a time series format from 1946to 1987, showing the countrys demographic trendsfrom its conception as a nation up to that point. Third,the statistics had relatively precise definitions. Untilthat time a fundamental problem of published DPRKstatistics was that they were presented without anystatistical definition and that in many cases their realdefinition was different from the generally accepted

international standard. 7 The demographic data sub-mitted in the 1980s, however, were relatively free of this problem.

After the submission of basic demographic data in the1980s, the DPRK carried out its first population census

in 1994. The census was an interesting piece of retroac-tive research on the North Korean population as of December 31, 1993. The result was made public inthe form of a statistical report in English: Tabulationon the Population Census of the Democratic PeoplesRepublic of Korea (31 December 1993). (See Table2.) The census differed from a typical modern andmultipurpose census because it was limited to researchon population size by region and sex, birth and death,

7. For the statistical denitions of DPRK statistics and their changes, see Lee, DPRK Statistics, chap. 3.

Table 2: Population Census Data in the DPRK, 1993

Categories Contents

Number of statistical

tables

Population andhouseholds

Total population, composition of population by age, sex, andregion (nine provinces and four special cities), urbanpopulation, rural population, number of households

41

Natality Total number of births; composition of number of births byregion, age of women; number of births in urban areas;number of births in rural areas

19

Mortality Total number of deaths; composition of number of deaths byregion, age, and sex; number of deaths in rural and urban areas

31

Laborpopulation

Working-age population; composition of working-agepopulation by province, occupation, sex, and age; number of workers, officers, co-op farmers; laboring population byindustry, urban/rural residence; composition of laborpopulation by industry, urban/rural residence; number of nonworking population; composition of nonworkingpopulation by age, number of nonworking population amongworking-age population

17

Technician,specialist

Number of technicians and specialists, number of techniciansand specialists by age, composition of technicians andspecialists by age, number of female technicians and

specialists, composition of female technicians and specialistsby age

5

Source: Tabulation on the Population Census of the Democratic People s Republic of Korea asof 31 December 1993 (Pyongyang: DPRK Central Bureau of Statistics, 1995).


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and household size and occupation. Nevertheless, theresults of this census shed light on all of the Northsage groups, and they specified the population struc-ture in all regions, paving the way for the study of theDPRK demographic structure on a more scientific andquantitative model. 8

Fundamental Change of StatisticalAvailability in the Mid-1990s

The availability of DPRK statistics began to changefundamentally in 1995 when the country officiallyrequested the international community to providehumanitarian aid. The DPRK then could no longerdisapprove the entry of international organizations,including the UN relief agencies. In addition, it couldnot disregard the submission of basic official statisticsin order to receive the aid. The DPRK had no choice

but to collaborate with the international community onvarious projects to revive its impoverished agricultureand economy. To implement these projects, it had touse relevant statistics to report its real economic situ-ation to the outside world. As a consequence, officialDPRK statistics were increasingly becoming availableduring this period.

An important source for DPRK statistics during thisperiod was the regularly published (field) reports bythe UN relief agencies. The Food and AgriculturalOrganization (FAO) and the World Food Program

(WFP), for example, with the DPRK governmentscooperation regularly dispatched a joint missionteam to the DPRK to carry out field inspections onagriculture and the food situation. This cooperationof course included necessary statistical support by thegovernment. Hence, an increasing number of DPRKstatistics became known to the outside world fromvarious (field) reports by the UN agencies ( Table 3 ).

Lets take a look at provincial population statistics asof August 1999. In terms of statistical availability, thedata are interesting for two reasons. First, consideringthe time point that the data were submitted, they mustbe the most up-to-date statistics that the DPRK govern-ment could obtain. This demonstrates the DPRK gov-ernments intention to supply necessary official data if

it would help to get international assistance. Second,the data divide the countrys provincial population intotwo categories: agricultural and nonagricultural popu-lation. Note that in the DPRK nonagricultural popu-lation is provided food by the government throughthe Public Distribution System (the PDS, the system

of rationing) while the agricultural population is notprovided food in this way. Hence the data might havebeen collected and submitted by DPRK rationing au-thorities such as the Ministry of Food Procurement andAdministration. This means that not only the countrysstatistical authorities, the DPRK Central Bureau of Statistics, but also other government ministries andagencies might have provided their own statistics to theoutside organizations. Combining those two aspects,one can easily find that DPRK statistics available fromvarious (field) reports by the UN agencies during thisperiod were not limited simply to data on agriculture

and food. They also included a wide range of detailedstatistics on food and agriculture as well as population,health, education, and other economic situations, someof which had not been released ever before.

DPRK statistics were also released in the reports of various projects on which the DPRK government andinternational community collaborated. In 1998, forexample, the DPRK and the United Nations Develop-ment Program (UNDP) held a roundtable discussionfor the revival and rehabilitation of North Koreanagriculture and the environment. The DPRK govern-

ment provided the roundtable with official statisticson various subjects from the Norths gross domesticproduct (GDP) to its cereal production ( Table 4 ).

The data in Table 4 are interesting in two respects.First, in the case of the GDP, it is practically the firsttime that the DPRK government has provided suchdata in a time series format. Second, for cereal (rice)production, the data have the precise statistical defi-nitions that are internationally applied: paddy andmilled. It is also the first time since the early 1960sthat the DPRK government applied those definitionsto its agriculture statistics. This suggests that DPRKstatistics available during this period are far moreimportant in their usability than any other statisticsreleased before, because the latter are mostly frag-

8. In 2008 the DPRK carried out its second census of the countrys population under the nancial and technical assistance of theUNFPA. The result was published as DPR Korea 2008 Population Census National Report (Pyongyang: DPRK Central Bureauof Statistics, 2009).


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T a

b l e 3 :

E x a m p

l e o f

D P R K S t a t

i s t i c s

S u b m i t t e d

t o J o i n t M i s s i o n

T e a m o f

t h e

U N

F o o d a n

d A g r

i c u l

t u r e

O r g a n

i z a t i o n a n

d U N

W o r

l d F o o d

P r o g r a m

A r e a

F o o d

d i s t r i b u t

i o n

( m i l l i o n s o f

t o n s

)

P o p u

l a t i o n

A u g u s

t 1 9 9 9

1 9 9 7

1 9 9 8

N o v .

D e c .

J a n .

F e b .

M a r .

A p r .

A u g .

S e p .

O c t .

T o t a l

( t h o u s a n

d s )

A g r

i c u l

t u r e

( % )

N o n -

a g r i c u

l t u r e

( % ) *

P y o n g y a n g

2 7 , 7

5 0

2 7 , 7

5 0

2 0 , 8

0 0

1 3 , 8

0 0

2 , 7 0 0

0

1 0 , 4

1 5

1 0 , 4

1 5

3 , 0 4 4

8

9 2

S . P y o n g a n

1 5 , 0

0 0

1 5 , 0

0 0

1 1 , 2

0 0

7 , 5

0 0

1 , 5 0 0

0

5 , 6 5 0

5 , 6 5 0

3 , 1 0 0

2 7

7 3

N . P

y o n g a n

1 0 , 1

5 0

1 0 , 1

5 0

7 , 6 0 0

5 , 1

0 0

1 , 0 0 0

0

2 , 5 5 0

2 , 5 5 0

2 , 6 2 5

4 0

6 0

C h a g a n g

9 , 3 5 0

9 , 3 5 0

7 , 0 0 0

4 , 6

0 0

9 0 0

0

2 , 3 5 0

2 , 3 5 0

1 , 2 3 2

2 8

7 2

S . H w a n g h a e

1 0 , 3

0 0

1 0 , 3

0 0

7 , 7 0 0

5 , 1

0 0

1 , 0 0 0

0

3 , 8 6 0

3 , 8 6 0

2 , 2 9 0

4 9

5 1

N . H

w a n g h a e

9 , 1 5 0

9 , 1 5 0

5 , 5 0 0

3 , 7

0 0

7 0 0

0

2 , 4 0 0

2 , 4 0 0

1 , 7 3 4

4 0

6 0

G a n g w o n

5 , 6 5 0

5 , 6 5 0

4 , 2 0 0

2 , 8

0 0

5 0 0

0

1 , 4 5 0

1 , 4 5 0

1 , 4 6 7

3 1

6 9

S . H a m g y o n g

1 3 , 6

0 0

1 3 , 6

0 0

1 0 , 2

0 0

6 , 8

0 0

1 , 3 0 0

0

2 , 7 2 0

2 , 7 2 0

2 , 9 3 2

3 1

6 9

N . H

a m g y o n g

1 3 , 1

0 0

1 3 , 1

0 0

1 0 , 0

0 0

6 , 7

0 0

1 , 3 0 0

0

2 , 6 2 0

2 , 6 2 0

2 , 2 2 7

2 2

7 8

Y a n g g a n g

5 , 2 5 0

5 , 2 5 0

3 , 9 0 0

2 , 6

0 0

5 0 0

0

1 , 0 5 0

1 , 0 5 0

7 0 3

2 1

7 9

K a e s o n g

2 , 0 5 0

2 , 0 5 0

1 , 5 0 0

1 , 0

0 0

2 0 0

0

4 5 9

4 5 9

3 8 6

3 5

6 5

N a m p o

4 , 5 5 0

4 , 5 5 0

3 , 4 0 0

2 , 3

0 0

4 0 0

0

1 , 1 5 0

1 , 1 5 0

8 1 4

1 8

8 2

T o t a l

1 , 2

5 9 , 0

0 0

1 , 2 5 9 , 0 0 0

9 3 , 0

0 0

6 2 , 0

0 0

1 2 , 0

0 0

0

3 6 , 6

7 4

3 6 , 6

7 4

2 2 , 5

5 4

2 9

7 1

S o u r c e : C r o p a n

d F o o d

S u p p

l y A s s e s s m e n

t M i s s i o n

t o t h e

D P R K

, U N F o o d a n

d A g r i c u

l t u r e

O r g a n

i z a t

i o n a n

d U N W o r l

d F o o d

P r o g r a m , 8

N o v e m

b e r 1

9 9 9 a n

d 1 2 N o v e m

b e r 1

9 9 8 .

* I n c l u d e s

7 6 7 , 0 0 0 m

i l i t a r y p e r s o n n e

l .


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Table 4: Example of DPRK Statistics for Joint Projects between the DPRK andInternational Organizations 1992 96

Gross domestic product (millions of dollars)1992 1993 1994 1995 1996

GDP 20,833 20,934 15,422 12,802 10,587Agriculture 4,551 4,689 3,223 2,228 1,556

Industry andconstruction

9,122 9,483 7,341 6,042 5,283

Service andother

7,160 6,762 4,858 4,532 3,748

Population(millions)

20.73 21.06 21.38 21.70 22.02

Per capitaGDP (dollars)

1,005 994 721 590 481

Rice production (paddy) (millions of metric tons)Area 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

NorthHamgyong

0.13 0.11 0.13 0.17 0.05 0.06 0.09 0.05 0.07

SouthHamgyong

0.40 0.44 0.44 0.49 0.29 0.30 0.21 0.14 0.10

Gangwon 0.18 0.18 0.19 0.18 0.15 0.13 0.09 0.06 0.05

NorthPyongan

0.62 0.79 0.64 0.68 0.83 0.60 0.25 0.20 0.13

South

Pyongan

0.93 0.89 0.74 0.79 1.03 0.79 0.39 0.24 0.27

Nampo 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.10 0.15 0.11 0.07 0.06 0.08

NorthHwanghae

0.33 0.41 0.33 0.37 0.43 0.12 0.15 0.11 0.19

SouthHwanghae

1.23 1.16 1.09 1.25 1.36 0.77 0.55 0.38 0.48

Yanggang 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01

Jagang 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.02

Pyongyang 0.27 0.26 0.29 0.27 0.30 0.20 0.14 0.11 0.13

Kaesong 0.08 0.10 0.08 0.10 0.11 0.01 0.04 0.03 0.04

DPRK 4.32 4.48 4.09 4.45 4.75 3.11 2.00 1.41 1.57

Source: Thematic Round Table Meeting between the DPRK and the United NationsDevelopment Program on Agricultural Recovery and Environmental Protection for the DPRK,Geneva, 28 29 May 1998.


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mented in their time series as well as extremely vaguein their definitions.

The DPRK government provided its statistics via otherchannels as well. For example, the government briefedpersonnel of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) in 1997 that the countrys mortalityrate for those under five years of age increased from31 for every 1,000 births in 1994 to 58 in 1996. TheDPRK Foreign Ministry also made similar mortalitystatistics known to the Pyongyang-based internationalorganizations and sometimes provided foreign dip-lomats visiting Pyongyang with the countrys basiceconomic statistics, including GDP and trade statis-tics. Those statistics were made more specific in theDPRKs official documents submitted to the UN andother international organizations.

Increasing Availability in the 2000s

The availability of DPRK statistics increased furtherin the 2000s when the DPRK government submitted tothe UN and other international organizations its official

reports with attached official statistics. For example,in 2002 when the DPRK government submitted to theUN its periodic report on the countrys human rightsconditions, it attached a statistical appendix that in-cluded not only basic socioeconomic indicators such aspopulation and GDP but also relatively specific statis-

tics like employment structure by industries as well asforeign debt ( Table 5 ). The data are far from complete;they have a relatively short scope of time series, andin some important categories the figures are missing.Nonetheless, it shows that the DPRK government hasprovided data using official documents submitted tothe outside world, which might be symbolic for itslong-lasting statistical secrecy.

Since 2000 the DPRK government has been revital-izing its collaborative statistics projects with foreignorganizations and has been releasing the collected data

through the projects as one of official DPRK statistics.Some international organizations, including the WFP,for example, have periodically carried out statisticalsurveys on the nutritional conditions of the childrenin the DPRK. 9 Of course the survey was conducted

Table 5: Example of DRPK Statistics Submitted with Official Documents StatisticalAppendix of DPRK, 2002

Contents Years

Key indicators Total population, life expectancy, gross nationalproduct, per capita GNP

1993, 1999, 2000

Population Population by region (nine provinces and threespecial cities) and urban/rural residence, number of households

2000

Employment Employment by industry and sex 1995, 1999

Births and deaths Birthrate, mortality rate, infant mortality rate 1990, 1993, 1996,1998, 1999, 2000

Technicians,specialists

Number of technicians, specialists, and doctors 1993, 1995, 1998

Debt andunemployment

Foreign debt and unemployment 1999, 2001

Source: Core Document Forming Part of the Reports of State Parties, DPRK, United NationsHuman Rights Instruments, 16 July 2002.

9. See, for example, Nutrition Survey of the DPRK (Rome: World Food Program, November 1998), and Report on the DPRKNutrition Assessment (Pyongyang: DPRK Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000 and 2002).


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in collaboration with the DPRK government, but thestatistics collected have not been considered officialDPRK statistics because they were released by theforeign survey institutions. After 2000, however, thesestatistics were officially released by the DPRK CentralBureau of Statistics.

A similar case is the DPRK statistical survey on hu-man reproduction and health that was carried out incooperation with the UNFPA in 2002. The final reportof the survey was published by a DPRK govern-ment institute in Korean. 10 It contained the statisticsobtained from the survey as well as other statisticscollected separately by the DPRK government. Thissuggests that the DPRK government has increasinglyacknowledged the statistics assembled with foreignfunds, techniques, and workforces as official ones.Accordingly, the outside world has gained more access

to official DPRK statistics.

There was an expansion of data circulated by the local-ly based UN relief agencies such as WFP in the 2000s.Table 6 presents a part of detailed demographic datafor the county level compiled by the WFP. The datagive very specific information on the demographicsituation in each DPRK county, including overall ageand sex structure, composition of the PDS and thefarming population, and the structure of fragile socialgroups such as pregnant and breast-feeding women.This kind of detailed data had never been available

before, and it shows how dramatically the availabilityof DPRK statistics has improved.

Availability Problem of DPRK StatisticsRedened

To sum up, in contrast with the widely held belief thatDPRK statistics are very scarce, their actual avail-ability has been significantly improving since themid-1990s. It seems that the DPRK has been provid-ing even some sensitive internal data through variouschannels. Considering that this tendency started inthe mid-1990s, one can conclude that the volume andscope of available DPRK statistics at present may bemuch greater than what we generally perceive. As

10. 2002 Reproduction Health Report [in Korean] (Pyongyang: DPRK Research Institute for Population, 2002).

already pointed out, therefore, the availability problemof DPRK statistics may be redefined: now the problemis not that the outside world as a whole has no accessto DPRK statistics; instead, todays problem is one of each individual facing difficulty in finding the statisticsthat exist in the outside world.

Table 7 summarizes the above discussion symboli-cally. If the word DPRK is removed from the titleof the table, it would become an ordinary and simpletable that displays the basic economic conditions of acertain country. For the DPRK, however, it was practi-cally impossible to make this simple table in the past.What has changed since the mid-1990s is that now wecan make this table. It would be nonsensical to say thatavailable DPRK statistics are as ample as those of othercountries, and, thus, that their absolute shortage doesnot matter anymore. From the statistical viewpoint

the DPRK still remains one of the most isolated andsecretive countries in the world. Nonetheless, Table7 tells us one thing: students of the DPRK economycan no longer excuse themselves by simply saying thatthere are no available DPRK statistics.

Dr. Lee is with the Korea Development Institute.


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T a

b l e 6 :

E x a

m p l e o f D P R K S t a t i s t i c s C o l l e c t e d b y

t h e W o r l d F o o d P r o g r a m : P o p u l

a t i o n S t r u c t u r

e o f S e v e

n C o u n t i e s i n

J a g a n g

, 2 0 0 2 ( e n d o f y e

a r )

C o u n

t y

P o p u l a t i o n

T o t a l

A g e b r e a k d o w n ( o f t o t a l )

F e m a l e

P u b l i c d i s t r i b u t i o n s y s t e m

0 y e

a r s

1 4

y e a r s

5 6

y e a r s

7 1 0

y e a r s

1 1

1 6

y e a r s

1 7

5 9

y e a r s

6 0 y e

a r s

a n d o l d e r

T o t a l

P r e g n a n t

w o m e n

N u r

s i n g

w o m e n

P D S

p o p u l a t i o n

N o . o f P D S

h o u s

e h o l d s

C h o s a n

4 1 , 9 4 9

7 4 0

3 , 6

5 9

1 , 5

7 4

2 , 9

7 7

3 , 9 4 3

2 3 , 6

6 0

5 , 3 9 6

2 2 , 4

0 0

7 5 0

7 4 5

2 1 , 3

2 3

5 , 3 8 8

H w

i c h o n

1 6 3 , 6 0 4

1 , 7 9 9

8 , 4 3 8

5 , 3

3 9

1 1 , 4 0 4

1 7 , 0

0 3

1 0 0 , 3 5 9

1 9 , 2 6 2

8 6 , 9

6 8

1 , 8 5 8

1 , 8 0 6

1 4 1 , 2 9 1

3 5 , 1

0 6

G o p u n g

3 0 , 0 0 3

5 2 4

2 , 2 5 2

1 , 1 6 5

2 , 2 2 6

3 , 0

4 1

1 6 , 8

4 2

3 , 9 5 3

1 5 , 6

7 5

5 3 6

5 2 7

1 2 , 4

8 9

3 , 1 2 2

S o n g w o n

3 7 , 4 1 4

5 4 0

2 , 7 5 7

1 , 5

3 6

3 , 3 1 2

4 , 4 1 9

2 0 , 1

4 3

4 , 7

0 7

1 9 , 6

3 2

5 4 8

5 4 3

1 9 , 5

9 7

4 , 9 2 6

D o n g s

h i n

4 4 , 1 3 9

7 5 9

3 , 6

7 3

1 , 7 0 1

3 , 4 1 9

4 , 3 0 0

2 4 , 3

8 0

5 , 9 0 7

2 3 , 1

5 8

7 6 8

7 6 4

1 8 , 3

4 5

4 , 4 4 6

W u s

h i

4 0 , 4 3 8

6 9 4

4 , 0

3 4

1 , 6

1 1

3 , 1 9 5

4 , 1 0 4

2 2 , 1

9 2

4 , 6 0 8

2 1 , 2

1 0

7 0 7

6 9 8

1 6 , 2

0 9

4 , 0 5 6

W i w o n

5 8 , 5 3 2

9 8 0

5 , 4

2 2

2 , 3

6 9

4 , 6 0 0

5 , 9 6 0

3 1 , 9

1 5

7 , 2

8 6

3 0 , 4

9 8

9 9 5

9 8 8

2 5 , 4

1 3

6 , 5 5 9

S o u r c e :

D P R K

P o p u

l a t i o n

S t a t

i s t i c s

2 0 0 2 ( e n d

) , d o c u m e n

t ( f o r a c c e s s i

b l e c o u n

t i e s o n l y ) r e c e

i v e d

b y W o r

l d F o o d

P r o g r a m o n

1 5

M a y

2 0 0 3

.


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Table 7: Economic Indicators for the DPRK

Indicators 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Growthrate (%)

2.2 0.5 0.1 3.2 3.9 3.2 7.7 4.0

Per capitaGDP(dollars)

464 458 454 464 478 490 524 546

Trade (millions of dollars)

Exports 914 858 859 877 885 908 920 948

Imports 1,038 917 918 933 939 988 1,008 1,029

Tradedeficit

124 59 59 59 54 80 88 81

Source: Analysis of the Situation of Children and Women in the Democratic People sRepublic of Korea (New York: UNICEF, 2006), from Central Bureau of Statistics,Pyongyang.