Event Description
As the global order continues to shift, North Korea's economic strategies and foreign policy are evolving in response to new challenges and opportunities. The 2025 North Korea Economic Forum (NKEF) Annual Conference seeks to explore these dynamics, focusing on how the North’s economic policies are shaped by sanctions enforcement, geopolitical realignment, and emerging global conflicts. This year’s program will open with a panel of next-generation scholars, who will present innovative, open-source research on North Korea’s economic aspirations through text analysis, satellite imagery, and trade data. Subsequent sessions will examine the challenges of post-COVID open-source intelligence, and the future of sanctions enforcement under shifting international alignments. Over two days, the fully virtual conference will convene leading experts from academia, think tanks, journalism, and policymaking to provide fresh insights into the evolving North Korean economy and its international implications. This interdisciplinary approach will provide policymakers and scholars with valuable perspectives as they consider future policy options for engaging with North Korea in the rapidly changing global context.
