North Korea posted a record trade deficit with China last year. At 811 million dollars, that's about four times the trade deficit registered five years earlier.

The finding was contained in a report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the World Trade Atlas and international organizations who compiled statistics from world countries.

North Korea imported close to one-point-four billion dollars worth of goods from China last year, while exporting products valued at 580 million dollars. Its total trade volume was one-point-nine billion dollars, up 16 percent from 2006.

The North's trade deficit with all trading partners passed two billion dollars in 2005 and fell to just under one-point-four billion the next year.

In trade with the U.S., the communist state imported 23-point-seven million dollars worth of goods in 2004. Cereal accounted for almost half the total, but dropped to one fourth the following year. The nuclear confrontation in 2006 led to a nearly complete shutdown of imports from the U.S. that year except for three-thousand dollars worth of books and newspapers.