North Korea’s trade dependency on China continues to escalate while its exports have shrunk drastically from the 2017 sanctions, data from the Korea International Trade Association showed.

The total trade volume for last year came at $2.945 billion, with exports worth $261 million and imports worth $2.684 billion.

While exports declined 20.9 percent on-year, imports increased 15.6 percent.

The reclusive state’s exports have plunged 94.3 percent compared to $4.562 billion in 2015, two years before stronger sanctions were put in place in 2017.

Top 10 trading countries with North Korea are China, Russia, Brazil, India, Costa Rica, Germany, Poland, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)