| North Korean flags are carried during a celebration of its 73rd founding anniversary in Pyongyang, in this Sept. 9, 2021, file photo. AP-Yonhap |
By Jung Min-ho
North Korea may have spent as much as $75 million on the missiles fired in its record single-day test, according to a military expert.
The North launched 25 missiles Wednesday, including one that landed near the South's waters, in protest of a series of combined military exercises between Seoul and Washington over the past several weeks.
Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation, a California-based policy think tank, told Free Asia Broadcasting that the total cost of North Korea's missile launches, including of short-range ballistic and surface-to-air types, was between $50 million and $75 million.
The amount far exceeds North Korea's September exports to China ― $14.2 million ― and is equivalent to the amount of money the North had spent on importing rice from China in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. In July, the North imported 10,000 tons of rice worth about $5.1 million, Chinese customs data showed.
“North Korea appears to have chosen a shorter-range missile (which costs between $2 million and $3 million a shot) … cheaper than a medium-range missile which costs between $10 million and $15 million per shot,” Bennett said.
North Korea has been carrying out weapons tests at an unprecedented pace this year, which means unprecedented costs attached to them.
According to the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a defense research center under the Ministry of Defense, North Korea had spent nearly $700 million for the first nine months of 2022, firing 36 ballistic missiles including six intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).
| North Korean farmers plant rice using a rice seedling transplanter at Chongsan Cooperative Farm in Nampho, South Pyongan Province, in this May 9 file photo. AP-Yonhap |
Food shortages show no signs of improvement
Meanwhile, North Korea's state-controlled media outlets have been highlighting the efforts of leader Kim Jong-un recently, covering his “achievements” such as a new ice cream factory in Pyongyang.
The protracted COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly hampered trade with China and other countries, and a series of recent natural disasters, mostly floods, have worsened North Korea's chronic food shortages.
An annual United Nations report on food security released in July found that 41.6 percent of North Koreans were undernourished from 2019 to 2021, a jump from 33.8 percent from 2004 to 2006.
Despite the regime's efforts, the situation will likely remain the same, if not becoming even worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecast in its “Rice Outlook: September 2022” report that global rice production will increase while North Korea's rice production will fall further compared with 2021.
The USDA forecast that North Korea will produce 1.36 million metric tons of dehusked rice this year, 38,000 metric tons less than the amount produced in 2021.
The Korea Development Institute (KDI) also predicted in its September “KDI Review of the North Korean Economy” that, without international support, North Korea's food insecurity could worsen from the end of this year and into 2023.
Yet the North has not accepted the South's “audacious initiative” ― a promise by the Yoon Suk-yeol administration to offer economic support in return for denuclearization steps. Speaking to reporters Thursday, an official at the Ministry of Unification said they will continue to seek talks with the North and the offer still stands.