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More articles by 'Natalia Matveeva'
Shunning isolation: North Korea’s forgotten attempt to build trade ties with UK
Pyongyang has pursued economic exchanges with West in past, showing its status as ‘hermit kingdom’ is not inevitable
The historical roots of North Korea’s notoriously-unreliable statistics
From grain cultivation to heavy industry, manipulation of data made numbers larger than reality
Dizzy with success: North Korea’s ambitious, and troubled, first five year plan
The DPRK's first experience with long-term economic planning produced mixed results
Why the USSR tried — and failed — to slow North Korean collectivization
Kim Il Sung's 1950s agrarian reforms further deepened the gap between Moscow and Pyongyang