Trade Restrictions: Security Council and Korean Businesses

trade restrictions: Beijing has imposed limits on oil sales and cut deeply into the North's foreign revenue by ordering North Korean businesses in China to close, sending home migrant workers and banning purchases of its coal, textiles, seafood and other exports, according to The Chronicle Herald. Imports from the North shrank 81.6 per cent to 54 million in December while exports to the isolated, impoverished country contracted 23.4 per cent to 260 million, said a spokesman for the Chinese customs agency, Huang Songping. China accounts for nearly all of the isolated North's trade and energy supplies. The U.N. Security Council has steadily tightened trade restrictions as leader Kim Jong Un's government pressed ahead with nuclear and missile development in defiance of foreign pressure. Despite the loss of almost all trade, the impoverished North has pressed ahead with weapons development that Kim's regime sees as necessary for its survival in the face of U.S. pressure. Beijing was long Pyongyang's diplomatic protector but has supported the U.N. sanctions out of frustration with what Chinese leaders see as their neighbour's increasingly reckless behaviour. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.