Mongolia will ship 25,000 tons of coal to North Korea’s Rajin port this year as part of a trial project, the chairman of the Mongolian Railroad Authority has said. Rajin, in the far northeast of North Korea, has recently been upgraded to handle larger volumes of coal exports, as part of a Russian-backed infrastructure project. “There are no technical problems with delivering coal to North Korea, and we are seeking ways to do so through the trans-Siberian railway to Rajin,” the Mongolian Railway Authority’s chairman said in comments carried by the Korean Broadcasting System. According to the report, Mongolia is also investigating how to deliver other metals such as copper and gold, and will consider the profitability of doing so.
The announcement came just as North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong was wrapping up an official visit to Mongolia, during which the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and finalized agreements on numerous forms of cooperation. North Korea itself has relatively large coal exports, which are mostly bound for China or Russia. Coal shipments from North Korea jumped rapidly at the end of the last decade, and are currently the most significant DPRK export, generating approximately $1 billion a year.