SEOUL, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Despite a decline in the amount of aid from abroad, food rations for the North Korean population have become weightier this year, the Yonhap news agency reports on Wednesday.
According to data by the UN World Food Program, in the first five months of this year, the authorities were handing out almost 400 grams of food per person daily, before the rations were decreased to 390 grams in June, July. In the same seven-month period last year, each North Korean national was entitled to 383 grams. About 16 million people, or 66% of the population of 24.2 million nation, receive state food rations in North Korea.
In February 2013, the World Food Program launched an ambitious two-year plan to provide the North Korean population with food, but by the present moment it has failed to meet even half of its goals, Yonhap writes.
The drop in the interest to help North Korea in the world comes against the background of growing military rhetoric from the official Pyongyang, which conducted in February its second nuclear test apart from almost daily threats against South Korea and the United States.
Speaking about the causes of growing rations, the South Korean observers note that “a relatively good harvest in the North in 2012 and its greater emphasis on increasing farm output may be bearing fruit.”