N. Korea weighs regional hub

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea is exploring a plan to become a regional transportation hub, a senior government economist told The Associated Press.

Ri Ki Song, a senior researcher with the Economic Institute of the North’s Academy of Social Sciences, said North Korea would also be open to joining world financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund if current member states give up their “hostile” policies toward it.

Ri said that although sanctions aimed at getting his country to abandon its nuclear and missile programs have increased over the past year, the country’s economy has maintained steady growth — with its GDP increasing from $24.998 billion in 2013 to $29.595 billion in 2016 and $30.704 billion in 2017.

Some outside experts dispute the North’s statistics. An estimate released in July by South Korea’s central bank, for example, had the North’s GDP decreasing 3.5 percent in 2017, which would be its biggest contraction since the famine years of the late 1990s.

Ri said North Korea’s growing numbers show that sanctions have actually helped the country, causing some parts of the economy to become more efficient and self-reliant.

The North has developed a kind of fertilizer that uses domestically produced coal instead of imported oil products, and made improvements in the method of producing steel, he said. He did not mention the flowering of capitalist-style markets, which are still officially somewhat frowned upon but which many observers suspect is a major factor if the economy is indeed growing.

Ri expressed optimism about the current climate of detente on the Korean Peninsula and leader Kim Jong Un’s summits this year with Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

“We are seeing a lot of changes in the atmosphere surrounding our country,” he said.

He said that if sanctions were lifted and the political climate was to improve enough, the North could develop its transportation infrastructure. Ri said North Korea could emulate countries like Switzerland and Singapore, “which have few resources and little territory but have used their geographical location to their greatest advantage.”