North Korea’s population in 1999 was estimated at 22 million people, with a growth rate of 0.8%. The economy of North Korea was largely dependent on its industrial sector, which accounted for around 40% of the country’s GDP. This was supplemented by the agricultural and mining industries. Foreign relations in 1999 were largely hostile with the country isolated from much of the international community. Politically, North Korea had been a single-party state since 1948 when it formally adopted a communist system. The ruling party at this time was the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which had been in power since 1948. In 1999, Kim Jong-il was Supreme Leader and had been since 1994. See ethnicityology for North Korea in the year of 2018.
Yearbook 1999
North Korea. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of North Korea. The Geneva talks between North Korea, South Korea, the US and China on a Korean peace treaty continued in January, April and August, but without any significant progress. At the talks in August, they did not even agree on the date for the next meeting.
- Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of NK which stands for North Korea and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.
Relations between North and South Korea, which are still formally at war, reached a bottom listing in the summer as the two countries’ fleets collapsed in the waters west of the Korean Peninsula, after North Korean patrol boats began escorting fishing boats to a disputed buffer zone south of the border. the two countries. Firearms erupted and a North Korean torpedo boat was lowered. The bilateral talks on reunification of families that split when the country was divided subsequently collapsed, without the parties agreeing on dates for new talks.
However, contacts between the countries, as in the past, also showed positive elements. In August, for the first time in nine years, a football match was played between a North Korean and a South Korean team. The match was played between union members from both countries in the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang.
In June, a South Korean tourist was arrested in North Korea, accused of espionage. The tourist was released after paying fines, but the Hyundai group was ordered to suspend their tourist trips to the country, which began in 1998. However, they could be resumed as early as August.
North Korean officials acknowledged in May for the first time that thousands of people have died of starvation since the food shortage began in 1995. International agencies continued to report severe famines during the year, although the UN World Food Program (WFP) announced in August that the situation had improved somewhat, which a result of food deliveries from donor countries.
Relations with the United States improved significantly when the United States declared in September that sanctions against North Korea would be eased, in exchange for North Korea agreeing to interrupt further test shoots of long-range robots. For the first time in April, a bilateral food aid agreement was signed from the United States to North Korea, and in May, the United States was allowed to inspect the underground complex where it was suspected that N. was trying to develop nuclear weapons. The conclusion was that the plant was incomplete and largely empty.
Despite the risk of severe punishment, during the year, more and more North Koreans continued to cross the border into China in search of food. According to foreign press reports, in the spring, the Chinese security service launched a raid on North Korean refugees and pledged rewards to private individuals who could provide information about where the refugees were.
The tense negotiations on the construction of two nuclear reactors in North Korea looked to be approaching a solution in the spring. Both the Japanese and South Korean governments decided in May to allocate funding for the KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) international consortium, which was formed in 1995 to build the reactors.
Swedish diplomat Erik Cornell, who opened the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang in 1975, published a book about his time in North Korea, “North Korea – envoy to paradise” during the year.
