What Are North Korea’s Natural Resources?

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The nation of North Korea has a number of natural resources, including tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, coal, iron ore, petroleum, gold, copper, pyrites, hydropower, fluorspar and salt. Most of these resources are dwindled or untapped because of poor government management and a failing economy that cannot make adequate use of them.

North Korea is a country located in eastern Asia that borders Russia, China and South Korea. North Korea has extremely limited agricultural resources, with permanent crops taking up only 1.7% of land use as of 2014. Much of the country features rough, rugged mountainous terrain, and as a result only about 19% of the land is arable.

North Korea is more successful when it comes to mineral resources. North Korea is speculated to be endowed with over six trillion dollars worth of rare metal resources. North Korea is a reservoir that is vast and mostly untouched due to North Korea’s extremely rigid and isolationist policies that prevent any foreign mining company from coming in and making use of the metal deposits beneath the soil. North Korea possesses very large deposits of iron and zinc, being the world’s eighteenth largest producer of both. The nation also possesses the twenty-second largest coal reserve in the world.