China to help develop N. Korean gold and iron ore mines

A Chinese firm has signed a deal with North Korea to jointly to develop a gold mine and two iron ore mines in the cash-strapped North, according to a website announcement seen Thursday.
The agreement was reached by the Beijing office of North Korea’s Committee of Investment and Joint Venture, which is tasked with attracting foreign investment, and a Chinese trading company called Baoyuanhengchang.
The office said the president of the Chinese firm and other parties had conducted field inspections and confirmed plans to develop the mines.
The website statement, dated July 27, gave no details of the terms. “Now facility building is already underway and everything is going as planned,” it said.
The impoverished North is increasingly allowing Chinese companies to explore its potentially vast mineral wealth, with its dependence on Beijing growing amid a nuclear stand-off with the United States and its allies.
South Korea estimates the total value of the North’s mineral deposits at 6,984 trillion won ($6.09 trillion).
China imported 8.42 million tons of minerals worth $852 million from North Korea between January and September last year, according to a joint study in November by the South’s Yonhap news agency and IBK Economic Research Institute.
Some 8.19 million tons of the total imports were anthracite coal, it said.
China accounted for 89 percent of the North’s total trade last year, according to separate figures from the South’s Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency.