North Korea's economy last year is estimated to have contracted the most since 2007 as leader Kim Jong Un marshaled resources for nuclear tests and ballistic missile development.
The gross domestic product of the totalitarian state fell 1.1 percent in 2015 from a year earlier, when it expanded 1 percent, according to calculations released by South Korea's central bank Friday.
Per capita income in the North was 1.39 million won ($1,223), or about 4.5 percent that of its southern neighbor's. In the early 1990s, North Koreans' income was about one-seventh that of South Koreans'.