North Korea's foreign earnings are expected to be curtailed by 20 percent in 2017 from three years ago due largely to the ongoing U.N. sanctions, a U.S. broadcaster said Wednesday.

"The North, which earned US$3.6-4.0 billion in 2014, is likely to see about $8-billion loss this year due to sanctions," Voice of America (VOA) said, quoting its own estimates.

The 2014 figure breaks down to $3.2 billion for exports, $2-6 billion for labor exports, $1 billion for inter-Korean trade, $30-40 million for tours and $1 billion for others, according to the VOA tally drawn up based on statistics from economic organizations at home and abroad.

Of this year's expected loss, a decline of $7 billion is likely to come from exports as the outbound shipment of minerals, the North's biggest export item, is currently restricted by the U.N. sanctions, the broadcaster said.

The broadcaster also pointed out that the economically devastated country has lost another major source of foreign currency, South Korea, since the southern neighbor stopped trade with it in May 2014, following a North Korean soldier's shooting of a South Korean female tourist to death in its Mount Kumgang tourist site and the shutdown of an inter-Korean industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong amid inter-Korean tension in February last year. (Yonhap)

저작권자 © The Korea Post 무단전재 및 재배포 금지