North Korea Has Suffered Its Biggest Economic Drop-off in 2 Decades

A boy sits at a desk outside a subway station of the Pyongyang metro in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 17, 2018. ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images

The North Korean economy shrank 3.5 percent last year, according to a report released on Friday, July 20, by South Korea’s central bank. It was the biggest drop-off since 1997, when North Korea’s Gross Domestic Production (GDP) decreased sharply by 6.5 percent.

In contrast, the economy of the democratically governed, South Korea grew by 3.1 percent in 2017.