What North Korea buys, and from whom.

What this record says

What crossed the border, what it was worth, and what it weighed.

Every figure on this page is from CEPII's BACI file, which reconciles what each pair of countries reports to the UN about the same shipment. Trade year 2024, compared with 2022. A line is one six-digit customs heading (HS 2022). Values are in US dollars at the border; growth is in current dollars, so part of any change is price, not volume.

Unit value. Unit values are customs values per tonne, declared at the border, not product prices. It is the value of a line divided by its declared weight, so it mixes grades, models and qualities under one heading. It is shown only where the weight is recorded, at least three source countries of USD 100k or more ship the line to North Korea with a weight, and the figure sits within a factor of five of the middle of those sources. Outside that band it is treated as a recording problem and left out.

Share is China's part of everything North Korea imported in that line, from every source. Sources counts the countries that shipped any of it.

Scope. Manufactured and processed goods, customs chapters 16 to 96, without ores, fuels, precious metals, scrap, raw farm output and one-off capital and defence purchases: the same rule as the Made here pages.

What it does not say

A record of trade, not a shopping list.

What this record does not say: what sells at retail, what margin a trade leaves, how crowded the marketplaces are, or how much of a flow is re-exported through entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

A large line is not proof of an opening, and a lower unit value from another country is not proof the goods are the same. Tariffs, standards, freight, payment terms, lead times and the plain fact that a supplier is good at it are all invisible here. Nothing on this page is a forecast, a recommendation or a promise. No supplier company is named, because the record holds none.

Source: CEPII BACI, HS22, version 202601. Edition of 2026-11-03.