SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has channeled key resources to its showcase capital city of Pyongyang over the past decades, deepening social polarization in the isolated country, a report showed Thursday.

   Citizens in Pyongyang enjoy privileges compared with those in other regions in such areas as food distribution, industrial assistance and leisure facilities, according to the report by the Seoul-based economic research institute affiliated with South Korea's SK Group.

   North Korea does not allow the disabled and those with a bad family background to move into the capital, home to about 2.5 million out of the country's 24 million people, according to the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

   North Korea has steadily increased its food rations to citizens from October last year, a South Korean relief group activist said last month, citing U.N. food agency.

   The amount of food rations increased to 395 grams per person last month, the activist said after a trip to the North, citing an official at the Pyongyang office of the World Food Program.

   Still, the North did not properly mete out food rations to people outside Pyongyang, according to South Korean private relief agencies.

   The North has relied on international handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.

   entropy@yna.co.kr
(END)