N.korea sustains big defence spending with new budget

SEOUL: North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament has passed a budget that sustains a high level of defence spending despite economic troubles as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for an aggressive expansion of his nuclear arsenal amid stalled diplomacy.

State media reports indicated Kim didn’t atend the Supreme People’s Assembly’s two-day session that ended on Wednesday.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency didn’t mention any comments by assembly members toward the United States or South Korea in its report of the meetings on Thursday.

The assembly convened weeks ater Kim called for an “exponential increase” of nuclear warheads, mass production of batlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting “enemy” South Korea and the development of more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the US mainland.

His statements during a major political conference in December underscored an intensifying nuclear standoff with the United States and its allies in Asia ater he pushed North Korea’s weapons tests to a record pace in 2022.

The North fired more than 70 missiles last year, including multiple ICBM launches, and conducted a series of tests it described as simulated nuclear atacks on South Korean and US targets.

Analysts say Kim’s aggressive arms expansion and escalatory nuclear doctrine are aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and to negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength. KCNA said the assembly’s members projected overall state spending would increase by 1.7% this year but made no mention of the actual size of the budget.

The assembly’s members devoted 15.9% of this year’s national budget to defence spending, the same proportion as last year, to support efforts on “further bolstering up the war deterrence both in quality and quantity” and “defending the dignity and security of the country and the people,” KCNA said.

It’s difficult to gauge how much money North

Korea would be spending on its military capabilities, considering the poor quality of the limited statistics it discloses.

According to the US State Department’s 2021 World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers report, North Korea possibly spent around $4 billion on defense in 2019, which would have amounted to 26% of its estimated gross domestic product, the highest proportion among 170 countries it reviewed.

KCNA’S report on the assembly meetings hinted that North Korea was struggling to revive a moribund economy batered by mismanagement, Us-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear ambitions, and Covid-19-related border closures.