North Korea's trade volume this year is expected to pass three billion dollars for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) on Thursday said the figure would likely reach the four billion dollar-level if inter-Korean trade were included.

The prediction is based on the 25 percent year-on-year rise in the North's trade with China, Thailand and Japan in the first half of this year to about 81 million dollars.

The communist state's foreign trade volume posted 2.8 billion dollars last year, and nearly 3.6 billion when inter-Korean trade was included in the figure.

A KOTRA official said the North's trade with China, by far its largest trade partner, grew more than 40 percent year-on-year in the first half, signaling Pyongyang's rising trade dependency on Beijing.