A poor country triples its trade volume in six years. Exports to its main partner soar fivefold. This is a rare feat for a nation not blessed with oil; rarer still for a country under UN Security Council sanctions, tightened three times during the same trade spurt.
We are talking of North Korea, believe it or not. Unbelievers appear to include Kim Jong Un. When the young leader brutally purged his uncle-mentor, Jang Song Thaek, in December the charge sheet included “selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices”.
China does receive some (not all) North Korean minerals cheap, since no one else will buy. But to be fair, on Jang’s watch – he oversaw trade with China – an economy still poorer on most indicators than when Moscow pulled the plug in 1991 began to grasp one big nettle: how to raise exports. Pyongyang issues no numbers; when they do that, we will know for sure reform is under way. But its partners’ recent trade statistics tell a striking story.