North Korea is still going through a COVID-19-related trade shutdown, and several indicators have suggested a near-halt to all official trade activity. Now, new data for the month of November shows an overall drop in China-DPRK trade, with a few key items propping up Pyongyang.

Last month, official Chinese trade with North Korea broke record lows. That was repeated in Nov. 2020, when North Korea imported $148,000 worth of Chinese goods and exported about $1.13 million worth of items (in terms of line-item total values). That’s more than a 98% drop both ways compared to Nov. 2019.

For