Two Koreas
The annual growth of North Korea’s per-capita gross national income (GNI) hit a seven-year low last year, and the income divide between the two Koreas reached a record high.
According to the Statistics Korea, the per-capita GNI of North Korea totaled 1.38 million won (US$1,260) in 2013, whereas that of South Korea reached 28.7 million won (US$26,224). The gap widened from 1,870 percent to 2,080 percent between 2012 and 2013. In 2012, the amounts were 1.37 million won (US$1,251) and 25.59 million won (US$23,382), respectively. Last year, North and South Koreas’ GNIs were 33.844 trillion won (US$30.918 billion) and 1.4411 quadrillion won (US$1.3173 trillion) each.
North Korea’s total trade volume increased by US$500 million year-on-year to US$7.3 billion last year. During the same period, South Korea’s amounted to US$1.0752 trillion. The North’s power generation plant capacity, which refers to electricity production, dropped from 7.552 million kW to 7.243 million kW between 2000 and 2013, when the South’s reached 86.97 million kW.
The rice production volume, in the meantime, was 2.101 million tons for North Korea and 4.23 million tons for the South. The total road length was 106,414 km for the latter and 26,114 km for the former. The total ship tonnage was 13.58 million tons for South Korea and 730,000 tons for the North.
The combined population of the two Koreas was 74.765 million, divided into 50.22 million in the South and 24.545 million in the North.