The present discussion concentrates on the repercussions of sanctions on North Korea's industries, specifically agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and manufacturing. Unfortunately, obtaining reliable data on industries is exceptionally challenging compared to other areas of North Korean research, which generally suffer from a dearth of data. Information on the industrial sector is considerably scarce, unlike in the trade sector where North Korea's trade partners provide mirror statistics or in the agriculture and health sectors where official institutions in South Korea or foreign countries furnish data. Therefore, North Korea's industries have frequently been evaluated based on trade data or reports from official North Korean media outlets such as the Rodong Sinmun. This paper also employs trade data and processed versions of such reports to scrutinize the impact of sanctions on North Korean industries and regional economies.

It is widely acknowledged that the sanctions implemented from 2016 onwards primarily targeted the trade sector. Subsequent to their imposition, the trade value of North Korea substantially declined, underscoring the significant impact of sanctions. With the near collapse of North Korea's trade, it is reasonable to infer that its industrial sectors have also been severely affected. When export restrictions are enforced on particular items, the demand for these items in overseas markets declines, and the pertinent industries face significant challenges if they are unable to locate alternative markets within the country. The production of related industries is inevitably affected as the import of intermediate goods such as petroleum products or capital goods such as machinery is restricted. For instance, after the prohibition of anthracite exports - one of North Korea's principal exports - in the mid- to late 2000s, the demand for associated industries such as coal mining decreased. Given the insufficient supply of machinery and equipment required for extraction, their production may also have been disrupted. Therefore, it is possible to indirectly analyze the effects of sanctions on North Korea's industries by examining its trade data, as sanctions should have impacted the country's trade first and its industries subsequently.

This paper specifically focuses on the UN Security Council's sanctions imposed on North Korea from 2016 onwards. In March 2016, Resolution 2270 was passed, followed by five more resolutions until December 2017. As Kim Jong-un succeeded Kim Jong-il in December 2011, the analysis commences from 2012, considering the period until the end of 2015 as the pre-sanctions period since the international sanctions that had a significant impact on North Korea's economy were first imposed in March 2016. The UN intensified the sanctions after this point, culminating in the adoption of Resolution 2397 in December 2017, constituting the current regime. Therefore, it is appropriate to evaluate the impact of sanctions from 2018 onwards. However, since January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the globe, including North Korea. To isolate the impact of sanctions, the post-sanctions period comprises only 2018 and 2019 to prevent overlap with the virus's spread.

Since the 2010s, North Korea's foreign trade has been marked by an increasing reliance on China. Given that China is responsible for over 90% of North Korea's imports and exports, it is reasonable to regard North Korea's trade with China as its primary trade. Data pertaining to North Korea-China trade can be obtained from several sources, including the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade), and the Customs Statistics of China. While some of the data may be considered less reliable than others, credibility issues concerning North Korea-China trade data are infrequent. Consequently, this study predominantly employs the UN Comtrade data and validates the findings with information from the KITA and the Customs Statistics of China.

This study encompasses inter-Korean trade within the ambit of North Korea's trade. North and South Korea engaged in trade until the closure of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in 2016, following North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile tests. Inter-Korean trade differs from regular trade because the relationship between the two Koreas is regarded as a unique relationship aimed at achieving unification, rather than a bilateral relationship between sovereign states. Inter-Korean trade, including the Gaeseong project, may have also impacted industries in North Korea. Therefore, it is appropriate to incorporate inter-Korean trade into North Korea's trade when evaluating how sanctions-induced changes in North Korea's trade have impacted its domestic industries.

The data on inter-Korean trade and UN Comtrade data employ the Harmonized System to categorize products, which is an internationally standardized system for commodity classification. Given that it is a product classification system, analyzing North Korea's industries necessitates the conversion of HS codes into industry classification codes, such as the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) or South Korea's Standard Industrial Classification (KSIC). In this study, the tenth version of the KSIC (KSIC 10) was utilized. As no concordance table exists to directly link HS codes with KSIC 10 codes, the conversion of product classifications to industry classifications was carried out using the following methodology. Initially, the HS codes from UN Comtrade data and inter-Korean trade statistics were converted to ISIC revision 3. Then, the codes were converted again to ISIC revision 3.1, followed by a conversion to ISIC revision 4, and finally to KSIC 10. Consequently, around seven thousand sets of North Korea's export and import items were disaggregated into approximately thirty industry groups. This restructuring facilitated the allocation of products into their respective industries and validated the industries that were impacted by trade sanctions.

Trade comprises both exports and imports, each with potentially varying impacts on the production activities of industries. Since the exports of an industry constitute its final outputs, the rise and decline in exports can substantially reflect the industry's production capacity. The decline in exports not only has indirect impacts on the affected industry but also on other industries that provide intermediate goods to the impacted industry by reducing demand, hence termed the rear-chain effect. However, according to Choi (2020), the indirect effects are relatively limited compared to the direct effects, which involve a reduction in the value-added of the impacted industry. As such, this study concentrates on the direct effects of the increase and decrease in the exports of an industry.

n contrast, imported products are likely to serve as intermediate goods in other industries, in addition to the industry that imported them. Therefore, the rise and fall in imports will likely impact related industries as well as the industry in question. For instance, petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel, which belong to the chemical industry encompassing oil refining, have broader applications as intermediate inputs in other sectors such as transportation, heavy manufacturing, and power generation. Hence, when assessing the impact of sanctions, particularly the changes in import items resulting from sanctions, on North Korea's domestic industries, it is necessary to concentrate on the indirect effects, known as the front-chain effect, as opposed to the direct effects seen in exports.