Beijing provides for one-third of the dictatorship's food needs. This week sent machines and samplings too.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - China gave a rare glimpse into its aid to North Korea on Friday, announcing that it sent its struggling ally 480 tonnes of grain, a harvester and a seeding machine this week. The shipment from provincial government of Jilin in China's northeast also included 100,000 saplings, official said.

China is believed to supply up to one-third of the North's food and one-quarter of its energy.

In January, ONU asked governments - with "World Food Program" - to send 500,000 tonnes of food for North Korea this year.

The isolated Stalinist dictatorship of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has depended on foreign aid to feed its people since its economy and state farm system collapsed in the mid-1990s. That followed the loss of Soviet subsidies, decades of mismanagement.

 

• CHINA
• NORTH
• KOREA
• FOOD
• AID
• ONU
• DICTATORSHIP
• ENERGY
• NEED