North Korean Economy By The Numbers--Too Tiny To Matter

North Korea has been in the headlines, heavily in recent days as the No.2 leader, Jang Song Thaek, was executed by his nephew Kim Jong Un–the current No.1 of the isolated country. Before that, the concern the country might or might not have long-range missiles or might or might have nuclear weapons kept it on the front pages for months. What is not mentioned terribly often is the size of the North Korean economy and what a major disruption of that economy would mean to the rest of the world.

According to the CIA World Factbook, North Korea has almost no economy at all. GDP (based on purchasing power parity) is pegged at $40 billion, and has not changed for three years. These numbers are barely reliable. The CIA has to turn to private estimates which in turn are based on information from the OECD). However, if the CIA numbers are close to correct, North Korea’s economy does not make it into the top 100 in the world based on GDP, and perhaps not much larger than Haiti’s.

Annual exports from North Korea are only $4.7 billion. As might be expected, two-third of this goes to China, the only ally the smaller country has. A great deal of what North Korea’s economy produces is almost certainly consumed internally. Unfortunately this is not mostly by the nation’s population. The military is probably the largest “customer” of North Korean production.

The most honest evaluation of the North Korean is from the Heritage Foundation:

North Korea is largely isolated and disengaged from the world's economy. Data collection is extremely challenging, and reported statistics on the economy remain largely speculative, requiring careful evaluation. North Korea's economic freedom score is 1.5, making its economy the least free in the 2013 Index.

However, apparently the “careful evaluation” cannot be done.