By Kim Young-jin
North Koreans have consumed less electricity in recent years than during the early 1970s, data showed Monday in the latest indicator of protracted economic hardship in the communist state.
According to information released by Statistics Korea, the per capita consumption of electricity stood at 819 kilowatt hours compared to 919 kilowatt hours in 1971. The North's population rose from 14.6 million to 24 during the timeframe.
The North’s economy has struggled mightily since its collapse in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union, when low-cost fuel provisions dried up.
Power usage, accordingly, peaked in 1990 at 1,247 kilowatt hours per person but dived to 912 kilowatt hours in 1995 then further down to 712 in 2000, a problem compounded by natural disaster and a massive famine.
In comparison, the South’s per capita consumption stood at 9,510 kilowatts in 2011.
Pyongyang’s propaganda has been prioritizing economic development and new leader Kim Jong-un recently told a visiting Chinese delegation that he was focused on “improving people’s livelihoods.”
The North recently completed construction of the Huichon Power Station, said to have a generating capacity of 300,000 kilowatts, though it remained to be seen whether this was improving conditions.
Kim Jong-un is grappling with a planned system struggling to feed its population. Profit sources exist with hybrid enterprises run by party or military figures with monopolies on trade and natural resources, but traditional state enterprises have long been stuck in the mud.
A report by the United Nations Development Program last year said just over a quarter of North Korean households had access to electricity as of 2009.