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Press

Press Briefings

본문영역

Regular Briefing by Spokesperson Yoh Sangkey

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고민석
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2020-11-30
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8478

Date: Monday, November 30, 2020
Time: 10:30-10:37 A.M.

1. Minister's Schedule

Minister Lee In-young will attend the cabinet meeting tomorrow at 10 A.M.

On December 2, Minister Lee will attend the plenary session of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs & Unification Committee at 10 A.M.

On December 4, Minister Lee will sit down for a meeting with members of the Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea at 10:30 A.M. Minister Lee will deliver a keynote address at the Korean Association of International Studies’ annual academic seminar at 1:30 P.M.

2. Vice Minister’s Schedule

Vice Minister Suh Ho will attend a session of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs & Unification Committee at 2 P.M.

On December 3, Vice Minister Suh will attend the vice-ministers’ conference at 10:30 A.M.

3. Q&A (Extract)

Q. North Korea held another politburo meeting of the workers’ party in two weeks, which can be seen as rather frequent. What is the Ministry’s understanding of this?

A. As you have mentioned, with North Korea having held its previous politburo meeting on November 15, yesterday’s meeting was the first in 14 days. A total of 31 politburo meetings were held since Chairman Kim Jong Un took office, and 11 alone this year implies that there have been quite some many meetings.

There may be a number of reasons behind holding a politburo meeting, but it can be assumed that the North is holding these to strengthen COVID-19 quarantine measures and review preparations for the upcoming party congress to be held in January.

Q. Lawmakers of the parliamentary intelligence committee explained last week that North Korea’s economy is struggling, and the North’s report on the politburo meeting includes that it “harshly criticized” economic agencies for operational failures. These claims imply that the economic situation in North Korea is not great. How does the Ministry evaluate the North’s current economic situation?

A. North Korea’s economy is expected to be facing a triple whammy of COVID-19 border closures, international sanctions, and natural disasters this year.

Q. Could you provide further explanation about the Ministry’s plans to redeem the money it sent to the WFP to provide rice assistance to North Korea?

A. The WFP project is one that the government has pursued since June of 2019. The Ministry has sought to provide the North with 50 thousand tons of rice through the WFP, but no progress has been made as of now. The government is discussing with the international organization to redeem operating costs of 11.77 million dollars. There will be an opportunity to explain this in detail once the discussion is complete.

Q. Reports claim that the money will be redeemed before the end of the year, is this possible?

A. The government is in talks with the aim of redeeming it by year’s end. We will explain in detail once the consultation is completed.