Geopolitical and logistical factors in the evolution of North Korea's shipping flows

César Ducruet (1) , Sung-Woo Lee , Stanislas Roussin

1 GC (UMR_8504) - Géographie-cités

Despite the secondary importance of maritime transport in North Korea’s economic development, maritime data obtained from Lloyd’s List Intelligence (LLI) provide a unique possibility to map and analyze North Korea’s transport dynamics over the last 40 years or so. Major traffic shifts internally (among North Korean ports) and externally (overseas connectivity with foreign ports) are underlined in this study, alongside other trends such as the overall cargo specialization, age and size, turnaround time, and flag nationality of vessels passing through North Korean ports. Crossing maritime data with trade data also allows confirming the declining importance of sea transport in foreign trade, given the increase of cross-border trucking and rail transport with China. Nevertheless, recent years witnessed a drastic shrinkage of North Korea’s global connectivity and an unprecedented concentration of overseas traffic at North China ports. A zoom on inter-Korean maritime dynamics is also provided alongside twelve periods of three years between 1980 and 2015. We conclude that maritime data is a good indicator of the wider economic and trade evolution of North Korea, and can base further analyses of its influence on future development.

Mots clés: COUV; PARIS team

Domaines: Géographie

César Ducruet, Sung-Woo Lee, Stanislas Roussin. Geopolitical and logistical factors in the evolution of North Korea's shipping flows. César Ducruet. Advances in Shipping Data Analysis and Modeling. Tracking and Mapping Maritime Flows in the Age of Big Data, Routledge Studies in Transport Analysis, pp.357-379, 2017, 9780367886288. ⟨halshs-03426544⟩