How China keeps North Korea's economy alive

North Korea runs one of the most bizarre economies on the planet. Despite being one of only a handful of nations with nuclear weapons, its 2024 gross domestic product (GDP) was a paltry $26.6 billion (€22.9 billion). This is about 70 times smaller than South Korea’s $1.86 trillion economy and about a fifth of the annual revenue of the world’s top-traded company, Nvidia. Thanks to a centrally planned economy that prioritizes domestic production, North Korea is nowhere near as reliant on trade as your average free-market economy, partly due to international sanctions, introduced by the United Nations in 2017 over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program. READ: Hopes grow for […]... Keep on reading: How China keeps North Korea's economy alive