China’s grain exports to North Korea dropped sharply in the first two months of the year, according to new data published by the Chinese General Administration of Customs (GAC) and analyzed by NK Pro.

The GAC’s latest numbers show that Chinese rice and corn shipments to the DPRK, sent during the first two months of the year, plummeted by slightly more than 90 percent compared to the preceding two months.

In January and February of 2020, according to the GAC data, China sent North Korea more than 1,100 tons of corn, worth about $317,000, and more than 1,300 tons of rice, worth about $588,000.

The January-February 2020 total — just over 2,500,000 kilograms — was higher than the same two-month period last year, however.

In January and February of 2019, China only reported total exports of slightly more than 1,100 tons of grains to the DPRK. (China did not report any grain exports for February 2018 or February 2019.)

This year, unlike in previous months, the GAC combined all of its trade data for January and February.

The sharp drop in grain exports may reflect a seasonal pattern: China’s economic output is known to slow down during the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls in January or February.

But it also may be a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the outbreak grew in neighboring China earlier in the year, North Korea began shutting down all of its borders at the end of January, ostensibly as part of an effort to prevent the virus from entering the country.

Pyongyang has denied having any cases of COVID-19 — an impossible claim, many experts say, in a nation where the public health system is known to be woefully unprepared for dealing with the rapid spread of an infectious disease.

The full extent the border closure’s effect on trade between the two neighbors may become clearer in the month of March, if Beijing’s numbers are reported accurately.

The DPRK does not release its own trade data, but the website Daily NK reported that grain prices shot up in parts of the country during the first two months of the year.

An analysis last week in NK Pro by Peter Ward, a researcher on North Korea’s economy and politics, said that “food prices have spiked since late January, with rice in the border city of Hyesan seeing the largest spikes.”

“Corn prices are not yet at record levels, but prices are now higher than they have been since July 2019, and the speed of the rise is concerning though far from unprecedented,” wrote Ward.

A similar jump in rice prices did not occur during the same two months last year, according to Daily NK’s price data.

China’s grain exports also come as humanitarian groups continue to warn about the widespread problem of food insecurity in North Korea.

A United Nations report published earlier this month said that 10 million North Koreans urgently need food assistance.

Kim Jong Un, however, said that his country had enjoyed a bumper harvest last year.