Those numbers are a joke. They're the most secretive country in the world and they don't really share economic data. It really can't be overstated just how much

Those numbers are a joke. They're the most secretive country in the world and they don't really share economic data. It really can't be overstated just how much wild guesswork is involved in coming up with those figures. An economist weighs in here: https://www.38north.org/2012/07/rfrank071612/ https://www.38north.org/2012/07/rfrank071612/ Moreover, most institutions will systematically under rather than overestimate their economic activity from what scraps of data they do have. You wouldn't, after all, win political capital in the UN or the CIA by declaring the north korean economic model to be more successful than it really is... nobody wants to hear that.