Seoul: North Korea faces a worse lack of food in more than a decade, it is said in a report to the United Nations, providing pyongyang world notice strengthening for one of the biggest domestic challenges since Kim Jong UN takes power.
Food production fell to the lowest level in 2018 because of “natural disasters and weak resilience, inadequate agricultural materials and low mechanization levels,” North Korea said in a voluntary national review for the examination of UN development goals.
The South Korean mission to the United Nations gave a notice of the report on Tuesday and it seemed the first time North Korea made it public.
Pyongyang also blamed the problem with the sanction of the UN Security Council which was applied to punish him to test nuclear weapons and missiles to provide warheads.
“The main obstacle for the government’s efforts to achieve the country’s sustainable development” includes “sustainable sanctions and blockades in the DPRK,” the report refers to the country with a formal name.
The report came after Kim appeared in the media of North Korea last month and issued a rare warning that “the food situation is now increasingly tense.” Warning comes at a time of year when food stocks usually run low and most of the harvest has not been brought in.
The lack of eternal food in North Korea became worse by the typhoon in 2020 which destroyed the harvest and Kim’s decision to be closed by Borders because Covid, slamming brakes in the small legal trade of what he had.
According to the United Nations Food Program, around 40% of the North Korean population lacking nutrition, adding “food insecurity and a widespread malnutrition.” The North Korean economy will almost not grow in 2021 after the worst contraction in decades when the country continues to struggle with a pandemic, sanctions and lack of trade with China, Solutions Fitch said in April.
Kim has rejected the call from the US to continue negotiating the disarmament of nuclear weapons, which can provide assistance from sanctions that strangling the economy.
He looked focused on overcoming internal problems for now than to carry out regional tensions through the provocative military movement, South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook told parliament last month.
Pyongyang propaganda machines have also kicked teeth, showing citizens who said North Korea strike cries to see more thinly dramatically.
Rare comments on the health of leaders may aim to build support at home by describing it hard because he tries to revive the economy.