A Washington think tank has analyzed that North Korea-China trade gateways Sinuiju and Dandong have seen a significant increase in rail vehicles, and that North Korea-China rail trade may be about to restart.
Yonhap News Agency reported that Beyond Parallel, a website on North Korea run by the U.S. Center for International Strategic Studies (CSIS), analyzed satellite images taken from September 2019 to April of this year and made the above analysis.
The report quoted Beyond Parallel as saying that after the pandemic, the number of trucks traveling between the two places dropped sharply, but the number of rail vehicles at railroad stations increased. According to satellite images from September 2019 and April last year, the number of car traffic between Sinuiju and Dandong decreased by 88 percent after the outbreak and border closure, and continued to decrease until the end of last month. Some foreign media reported that North Korea closed the border between the two Koreas early in the epidemic on Jan. 21 last year, after which trade between the two countries decreased by about 80%.
On the contrary, rail transport between the two railway stations has increased. 110 rail vehicles were observed at the two railway stations in September 2019, increasing to 152 in April last year and 285 on the 17th of last month.
The website introduced a foreign media report that in mid-October last year, a temporary cover was placed on one of the lines on the east side of the open dump at Sinuiju railway station, and one of them was removed between March 31 and April 1 this year. The cover may be used to protect export goods to China, and the removal of the cover may suggest that rail trade between North Korea and China will restart soon. All in all, it can be speculated from the satellite images that more and more export goods to China are piling up at the railway facilities in Sinuiju and that the inter-Korean-Chinese railway trade may restart within restricted limits.
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