North Korea’s Economy Has Worsened According to Satellite Analysis

The Ministry of Unification and KAIST evaluated the four western regions of North Korea through satellite imagery.
From 2019 to 2021, Pyongyang’s economy grew negatively.

The Ministry of Unification and KAIST have found that the economy in North Korea’s four western regions has regressed, based on an analysis of artificial satellite and artificial intelligence (AI) data.

On the 13th, the Ministry of Unification and KAIST jointly released the results of an evaluation of economic development using AI techniques and 173,543 satellite images from 2016, 2019, and 2021 of Pyongyang, South Pyongan Province, North Pyongan Province, and Jagang Province.

The KAIST research team trained AI on the correlation between satellite images and economic development, dividing the analysis areas into 0.15 square miles grids and evaluating the degree of economic growth in each grid section with a score between 0 and 1. The economic development score (siScore: satellite image score) derived by the research team is based on satellite images, and according to the Ministry of Unification, it can gauge the degree of economic development based on changes in artificial structures such as buildings and infrastructures such as roads.

The siScore for 2021 showed that downtown Pyongyang had the highest score at 0.1679, followed by Pyongyang as a whole (Pyongyang City) at 0.1105, Pyongan North Province at 0.0597, Pyongan South Province at 0.0563, and Jagang Province at 0.0140. The average score for all regions was calculated to be 0.0445.

To determine the impact of international sanctions against North Korea and the COVID-19 pandemic on North Korea’s economic development, the research team compared the scores for 2016, 2019, and 2021. They found that while the siScore increased by 0.0100 from 2016 to 2019, it only increased by 0.0059 from 2019 to 2021. Particularly, from 2016 to 2019, the economic development score increased in all four regions under analysis, but from 2019 to 2021, it decreased in Pyongyang from 0.1149 to 0.1105.

The decrease in downtown Pyongyang was even more significant at 0.142. The Ministry of Unification and the research team analyzed the negative growth of the Pyongyang region derived from the lackluster of North Korea’s economic development due to the effects of COVID-19, such as the closure of national borders in 2020-2021. The Ministry of Unification concluded, “From 2016 to 2021, Pyongyang appears to have stagnated or regressed in economic development through North Korean sanctions and COVID-19 lockdowns.”