Command Post:
Yonhap, the official South Korean news agency, reports that North Korea has announced a significant cut in cut in food rations to 250 grams per person per day, the equivalent of two medium-size potatoes. The BBC, which also reported the story, notes that this is half of what the World Food Program recommends as a subsistence amount. The BBC report notes that although the most recent North Korean harvest was the best in a decade, food shortages have increased in recent years.
The ration cut closely follows another Yonhap report that North Korea had sharply increased taxes—officially deemed "voluntary payments"—specifically those it collects from "money-making" individuals. The report, relying on information from a Japanese non-governmental organization, did not specify whether the targets for the tax increase were relatively prosperous traders with connections to the ruling North Korean elite, subsistence-level traders who no longer receive rations, or both.
The BBC report suggested that the ration cuts may also have been part of the regime’s effort to encourage the growth of private markets. While some analysts suggest that the new measures are part of North Korea's effort to reform its collapsed economy, they could also mean that the regime, which has become dependent on falling international aid, has reached a point of sufficient economic desperation that it is being forced to squeeze those on the fringes of its political base.
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