al level and to secure a modicum of civilcontacts and communications among the people. On the Korean peninsula, North Korearemains to this very day a hermetically closed society. No information flows uncontrolled intothe country, access to foreign radio and television broadcasts is non-existent and no contact ispermitted with the outside world, not even the exchange of letters. Travel both inside thecountry and abroad is subject to approval and regulation. Apart from the country’s leaders andnomenklatura, all other North Koreans are unaware of developments in the world in general andthe social and economic conditions in South Korea in particular. This constellation is likely tomake any unification process in Korea fraught with the risks of political and social instability.There are also significant differences in the economic constellation between Germanyand Korea. The population ratio between East and West Germany was 1:4, while for North andSouth Korea this ratio stands at 1:2. In 1997, North Korea is believed to have experienced aneconomic decline of 3.7% and in 1998 of 5.2%. South Korea has continued to achieve rapideconomic growth in the past couple of decades. This has brought about an ever-wideningincome gap. Today, the per capita income of the South is at least five times the size of theNorth. This alone will make economic integration between North and South an exceedinglytough and complex task. North Korean GDP per capita corresponds to some 16% of that ofSouth Korean, while East German GDP per capita stood at 25% of West Germany’s at the timeof unification. North Korea’s trade volume stood at $ 4.7 billion US dollars in 1990 and $ 2.7billion in 1991. The decrease resulted from a slump in imports. South Korea’s trade volumereached $ 153 billion US dollars in 1991. China and the former Soviet Union accounted forsome 70% of North Korea’s trade. Instead of barter or compensation trade...
