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.