Inter-Korean trade has dropped in the wake of North Korea’s second nuclear test and implementation of international sanctions against Pyongyang.

The Korea Customs Service in Seoul said Sunday that the volume of inter-Korean trade fell 38 percent year-on-year last month to 106 million U.S. dollars shortly after the North conducted its second nuclear test. The figure represented the ninth consecutive month of decline in bilateral trade since September last year.

The volume of inter-Korean trade over the first five months of this year slid nearly 28 percent year-on-year to five-hundred-32 million dollars.

If the decline continues this year, inter-Korean trade is expected to amount to 60 to 70 percent of last year's volume.

This year is the first in which inter-Korean trade has shrank. The volume of bilateral trade in 1999 was three-hundred-28 million dollars and expanded to one-point-eight billion until last year.