Soaring grain prices to worsen N Korean crisis
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
SEOUL, March 17 (AFP): Soaring international grain prices will aggravate North Korea's acute food shortage and encourage more people to flee the communist country, a South Korean private think tank has said.
The Hyundai Economic Research Institute warned in a report that such a situation could fuel regional instability.
"Surging international grain prices will further worsen North Korea's food shortage crisis and encourage more North Koreans to flee the country," said the report dated Friday, which assessed the impact of rising prices on both Koreas.
"This will very likely lay a big stumbling block to North Korea's opening and destabilise Northeast Asia."
The institute said growing defections to countries like China and South Korea would fuel "an international dispute over human rights" in the North.
The North was hit by famine in the mid- to late-1990s which killed hundreds of thousands. It has since heavily depended on international food aid to help feed its population.
Tens of thousands-if not hundreds of thousands-of North Koreans may already be hiding out in China after fleeing poverty and oppression, human rights groups say. Many hope eventually to travel to South Korea.
Beijing repatriates those whom it catches, a process criticised by rights groups.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said last month that almost a quarter of North Korea's 23 million people suffer from a severe lack of food.
In a report it said nearly six million are in need of foreign food aid this year, with children, nursing and expectant mothers and the poor most at risk.
The UN agency said the nation would be short of an estimated 1.4 million tonnes of food this year, nearly a quarter of its total needs.
The agency said malnutrition rates had fallen since the late 1990s. But citing a 2004 survey, it said 37 per cent of young children are still chronically malnourished and one third of mothers are malnourished and anaemic.
The WFP has been operating in North Korea since 1995 but was ordered to scale down its programme in 2005. It currently feeds nearly 1.2 million people.
World agricultural commodity prices have been rising this year due to increased export taxes on Chinese and Russian cereals, strong global demand, a poor harvest in Australia and rising speculation.
The Hyundai Economic Research Institute warned in a report that such a situation could fuel regional instability.
"Surging international grain prices will further worsen North Korea's food shortage crisis and encourage more North Koreans to flee the country," said the report dated Friday, which assessed the impact of rising prices on both Koreas.
"This will very likely lay a big stumbling block to North Korea's opening and destabilise Northeast Asia."
The institute said growing defections to countries like China and South Korea would fuel "an international dispute over human rights" in the North.
The North was hit by famine in the mid- to late-1990s which killed hundreds of thousands. It has since heavily depended on international food aid to help feed its population.
Tens of thousands-if not hundreds of thousands-of North Koreans may already be hiding out in China after fleeing poverty and oppression, human rights groups say. Many hope eventually to travel to South Korea.
Beijing repatriates those whom it catches, a process criticised by rights groups.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said last month that almost a quarter of North Korea's 23 million people suffer from a severe lack of food.
In a report it said nearly six million are in need of foreign food aid this year, with children, nursing and expectant mothers and the poor most at risk.
The UN agency said the nation would be short of an estimated 1.4 million tonnes of food this year, nearly a quarter of its total needs.
The agency said malnutrition rates had fallen since the late 1990s. But citing a 2004 survey, it said 37 per cent of young children are still chronically malnourished and one third of mothers are malnourished and anaemic.
The WFP has been operating in North Korea since 1995 but was ordered to scale down its programme in 2005. It currently feeds nearly 1.2 million people.
World agricultural commodity prices have been rising this year due to increased export taxes on Chinese and Russian cereals, strong global demand, a poor harvest in Australia and rising speculation.