SEOUL, July 3 (Yonhap) -- Trade between South and North Korea shrank more than 14 percent in a year following economic sanctions imposed on the North in retaliation for its sinking of a South Korean warship, the Unification Ministry said Sunday.

   Total inter-Korean trade dropped to US$1.73 billion in the year spanning from June last year to May this year, declining 14.41 percent from $2.02 billion in the same June-May period a year earlier, according to the ministry.

   The decline came after the sitting Lee Myung-bak administration declared on May 24 last year its resolution to bring the North's March 26 sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan to the United Nations Security Council.

   The South also imposed economic sanctions on the North in reaction to the ship attack that killed 46 crew members. The North has denied responsibility for the attack.

   General trade and processing trade, in which North Korea imports resources and manufactures them to re-export to the South or another country, plunged 76.45 percent to $165.9 million during the cited period, the ministry said. Both of the trade types have been banned since the May resolution.

   Inter-Korean trade has shown an even steeper downtrend since the beginning of this year as pre-paid manufacturing orders, which were exempt from the trade ban, nearly came to an end, according to the ministry.

   During the January-May period, cross-border trade stood at $685.2 million, down 21.5 percent from the same five-month period last year, it said.

   However, the volume of trade via the Kaesong industrial complex, an inter-Korean joint economic project, rose 24.2 percent to $1.55 billion over the past year, the ministry added.

   pbr@yna.co.kr
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