The January 2025 Session of the North Korean Parliament: An Unusual Oath and the Absence of a “Russia-Effect”

(Source: Rodong Sinmun)

Introduction

Whatever the size and economic impact of North Korea’s support of Russia’s war in Ukraine really is, it has so far had no visible impact on economic data and policies as announced during the recent session of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA). Abstractly speaking, we are relatively certain that there is a cause, but we cannot see the effect.

Ironically, the opposite is true for a loyalty oath taken by North Korea’s Premier. It is unprecedented and hence must have very serious reasons. While these are most likely of a domestic nature, their potentially crucial details remain in the dark. Kim Jong Un’s harsh and widely publicized criticism of misbehavior of officials in the southeastern Onchon County a few days after the SPA session could be related. It is possible that the upcoming 9th Congress of the Korean Worker’s Party (WPK) will shed further light on what caused the unusual loyalty oath.

Main Issues

The North Korean legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly, met in Pyongyang for its annual meeting on January 22-23, 2025. Unlike the year before, leader Kim Jong Un was not present. However, his absence is not unusual. He was neither present at the SPA sessions of 2023 nor of 2022.

The SPA followed the standard routine for such sessions. The Premier of the Cabinet reviewed the work of the cabinet for the past year and outlined major tasks for the current year. The Minister of Finance spoke about the fulfilled 2024 and the planned 2025 state budget. In addition, the SPA deliberated on several legal and organizational issues.

Two points stand out as being most noteworthy:

  • An oath sworn by the Premier on behalf of all Cabinet members “to remain faithful to the Constitution of the DPRK and live up to the expectations of the Party and the people.”
  • The absence of any visible effect of North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia on official budget and growth data.

Both issues will be discussed in more detail below. Apart from these, the main points in the 2025 reports can be summarized as follows:

  • A strong emphasis on economic development can be observed. The term “development” is mentioned ten times in the three-page Rodong Sinmun article about the premier’s report, including the relatively modern term “sustainable development” (지속적발전).[1] If seen together with other measures, such as a focus on rural economic development, infrastructure improvement, and afforestation, parallels to South Korean development policies of the 1960s and 1970s come to mind.
  • There is a focus on trademark projects such as the Five Year Plan, the 12 major goals for the development of the national economy, and the 20×10 regional development policy. This is a reflection of orthodox socialist governance, where economic policies and ideologically charged events are closely connected.
  • The 80th founding anniversary of the Worker’s Party of Korea in 2025 and the upcoming 9th Party Congress were highlighted as major political and ideological milestones. The latter might be noteworthy as it implies the next Party Congress will be held already in 2025. A precise date for the event has not yet been announced. However, following the regular five-year period as it was re-established under Kim Jong Un, the next such meeting after the 8th WPK Congress in 2021 would be due in 2026. It is possible that the 9th WPK Congress will either be combined with the annual year-end Party Plenum in late December that so far also seems to have replaced the leader’s New Year message, or with the 80th founding anniversary of the Party in October.
  • The return to conservative orthodox socialist economic policies as it has been observed since 2018 has once more been confirmed. In particular, the exclusive control of the economy by the state has been emphasized. To quote Rodong Sinmun: “establish discipline and order in which all sectors and units unconditionally obey and implement the Cabinet decisions and instructions.” The fact that such demands can be found in many official statements of various representatives of the state, including the leader, over the past years could be an indicator that the implementation of that goal turns out to be difficult.
  • Buzzwords such as artificial intelligence (AI) or foreign trade were not mentioned in Rodong Sinmun reporting about the SPA. This is somewhat surprising, considering the current global AI wave, North Korea’s alleged IT capacity and the enthusiasm with which previous new technologies such as CNC had been promoted. Trade-related policies like import substitution and a re-centralization of foreign trade had received attention during previous SPA sessions but were omitted this time.
  • Neither North Korea’s new approach to unification since the end of 2023 and on relations with South Korea, nor the new president of the United States were mentioned. The latter is not entirely unusual for the two economy-related cabinet reports, but apart from that SPA sessions have in the past been used to mention broader geopolitical issues as well.
  • Problems and setbacks were covered only in very general terms this time, such as “many obstacles and difficulties.” In previous years, sanctions or natural disasters had often been addressed specifically.

The Premier’s Oath

In a highly unusual move, Premier Pak Thae Song swore an oath on behalf of all Cabinet members. There was even a separate Rodong Sinmun article devoted to this. Three issues are worth discussing:

  • The fact that such an oath has been taken at all.
  • The promise of remaining “faithful to the constitution.”
  • The emphasis on putting the overall economic work under the unified guidance and strategic management of the state.

The final point aligns most closely with the economic policy narrative in North Korea that has been familiar over the past few years. What is particularly noteworthy here is that the Premier, despite several years of explicitly emphasizing the leading role of the state in the economy, still considers it important to highlight this point again and in such strong terms. One might speculate that it is apparently not easy to undo the measures of economic decentralization and liberalization introduced during the phase of cautious quasi-reforms under Kim Jong Il. From an objective perspective, this would be hardly surprising; people around the world tend to value freedoms they have once acquired and often strive to make their reversal difficult or impossible within their means. However, there is no concrete evidence that the new middle class and other beneficiaries of the reform policies are resisting to an extent that it would justify such a rare public loyalty oath from the Premier.

Rather, it is conceivable that loyalty to the constitution is the core of the oath. This is particularly relevant in light of the situation in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol has been accused of violating the constitution with his declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. Although South Korea is not directly mentioned in any of the official reports on the SPA session, it is plausible that North Korea’s leadership is explicitly declaring its constitutional loyalty in contrast to its archenemy. Apart from the North Korean population itself, which we should always assume to be the primary target audience for the state’s announcements, another intended recipient of this message would be the South Korean public, pointing at a greater-than admitted interest of Pyongyang in its southern neighbor.

Whether this also contains a warning to the North Korean elite to refrain from unconstitutional acts is difficult to say. The constitution is regularly amended to reflect the leader’s wishes, so that its weight and relevance in the North Korean rule-by-law autocracy is entirely different from that in South Korea’s democracy with its principle of rule-of-law. If viewed together with the report about serious misdeeds by officials in Onchon County a few days later, the oath might have been intended to instill greater discipline in state officials and to avoid an extension of the leader’s wrath to other parts of the state apparatus.

No Visible “Russia Effect”

The annual state budget is one of the few instances when North Korea regularly publishes some rudimentary economic data. These can be used as a proxy for economic growth. In an economic system where almost all enterprises are owned and managed by the state, it is appropriate to assume a close correlation between the state’s income and spending, and the overall gross domestic product (GDP).

North Korea’s media provide only incomplete insights into the budget reports, which are assumed to be available in more detail to all or some SPA deputies. Typically, only growth rates and no absolute numbers are reported. Moreover, detail is not always provided consistently, making a comparison over the years complicated. However, reporting is very constant on aggregate figures such as actual and expected revenue and expenditure of the state. Graph 1 shows this data since 2000.

Graph 1. Official annual growth rates (percentage) of North Korea’s state budget since 2000.

We notice a rebound of the economy in 2024, with revenue growing by over 4%. The most striking observation is that this rebound is relatively weak, remaining below the growth rates before the pandemic, and that the state’s expectations for 2025 are moderate.

The expected growth rate of state revenue in 2025 by only 2% is not very optimistic, especially if we consider news in Western media about huge income generated by selling arms and by sending troops to Russia. A look at trade data (available up to 2023) points in the same direction: a moderate rebound but no dramatic effect. The nominal import value is very low (under 3 billion US$), so that any significant inflow of funds from Russia should be strongly reflected.

Graph 2. North Korean trade from 1990-2023 in USD.

South Korea, by contrast, is experiencing a huge positive economic effect due to its arms exports. These are expected to reach 23 billion USD in 2025, fueling hopes to become the fourth largest global arms exporter in 2027.

Both the graphs for the state budget and for trade continue showing a deficit. The state expects its expenditure to grow more strongly than its revenue, and observed imports are much higher than exports. It is tempting to see this as proof of the existence of Russian transfers; however, these deficits have existed for many years before, so that such a causality is not easy to establish.

The assumption of the absence of any significant inflow of war-related income from Russia into North Korea’s economy is further supported by the development of the North Korean won (KPW)-United States dollar exchange rate. The sale of arms and men to a foreign country generates income in foreign currency. Assuming stable demand, this should drive the price of foreign currency down and the value of domestic currency up.[2] However, the opposite is happening. While on May 17, 2024, North Koreans had to pay 8,800 North Korean won for one USD, the exchange rate doubled until October 11 and reached an all-time high of 28,000 on November 29. As of January 21, 2025, it stood at 21,000.

Graph 3. USD – KPW exchange rate from February 16, 2024 – January 16, 2025.

What should be noted is that the abnormal depreciation of the KPW started very abruptly around May 2024. This does indeed correspond with an intensified bilateral relationship between North Korea and Russia, as evidenced by the visit of Russian president Putin in Pyongyang in June and the conclusion of a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, ratified in December 2024. However, since other reasons cannot be excluded, this might turn out to be a mere correlation.

Discussion

All of the above is based on very questionable data, both in terms of the sources’ sincerity and their methodology. Budget figures are reported by the Party newspaper; trade statistics are based on reverse statistics with data from countries that might have an interest in not disclosing all their interactions with North Korea; and market prices are based on a few random reports from North Korean individuals. However, this only calls the reliability of nominal data into question. The relative development of data over time seems to be more credible, assuming the same errors or biases being in place continuously.

The observed phenomena can have different causes. It could be argued, for example, that transfers from Russia to North Korea happen not in cash but in kind, e.g. in the form of goods or technologies, and hence do not impact money supply. Moreover, trade data with Russia are so far only available for 2023. It is further possible that the Russian transfers in whatever form are channeled directly to the North Korean military and thereby do not show up in the state’s official statistics. However, the so-called “Second Economy”, i.e. the part of the economy that is run by the military, is not limited to the production of arms and ammunition and is very much integrated into the overall North Korean economy. Therefore, we would have to expect at least some substitution effects: resources that the military gets from Russia should now be available for the civilian economy. Also, the available foreign money in the hands of military individuals or enterprises should eventually reach the civilian markets.

All this makes the interpretation of the SPA reports challenging. Nevertheless, and the actual causes notwithstanding, the very absence of any visible effect on the state’s revenue and expenditure in 2024 and the lack of an optimistic outlook for 2025 remain striking. The same is true for the Premier’s oath. Regardless of how we understand its cause, it is highly unprecedented. For otherwise very stable systems like that of North Korea, such deviations are important indicators of unusual and irregular developments, even though their full nature and extent might be revealed only much later.


  1. [1]

    “Twelfth Session of 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of DPRK Held,” Rodong Sinmun, January 25, 2025.

  2. [2]

    This view has been shared by German economist and North Korea specialist Bernhard Seliger during a talk at the European Centre for North Korean Studies in Vienna on January 27, 2025.


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