Sino-NK

A goods lorry departs the Sinuiju Customs House. | Image: Sino-NK.

Exports from North Korea to Liaoning province are surging, following record trade between the Chinese border province and the DPRK in 2025. In March, growth in goods shipped from the DPRK into Liaoning soared 326 percent from a year earlier, up from just RMB 800 million to RMB 3.6 billion, according to recently released Chinese customs data. This follows an upward trajectory in trade volumes last year, as reported by Sino-NK in November 2025.

For the first quarter of 2026, North Korea-Liaoning trade climbed more than 225 percent, from RMB 2.3 billion to RMB 7.4 billion. In US-dollar terms, North Korea therefore generated an additional USD 750 million in export revenues from this trade surge with Liaoning during the first three months of this year alone.

This impetus appears to be linked to the continuation of warm ties between China and the DPRK following the meeting between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un in Beijing in September of last year, and follows the resumption of train services between the two countries on 12 March. Having had few travel options into China for six years following the closure of the country in early 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, DPRK businessman are now able to catch a train from Pyongyang or Sinuiju, with stops in Dandong and Shenyang, the Liaoning provincial capital. With China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi having made a trip to Pyongyang to meet with Kim in early April, high-level contact has continued between the two countries, and may further boost trade.

The core products which have driven this surge in DPRK exports to its neighbour? Tungsten ore, wigs, and fake eyelashes. These are products which sit in a sanctions grey area. While UN measures placed on the DPRK note iron ore, lead ore and “other prohibited metals”, they do not explicitly list tungsten or its ore. Similarly, wigs and eyelashes are not referenced in UN sanctions, although textiles are. Often raw materials are sent into North Korea, from China, where they are semi-finished, shipped back across the border and attached with “made in China” labels for export globally, including to the US. This means the trade not only benefits from low-cost labour in the DPRK, it also gives Chinese trade companies plausible deniability on sanctions violations since the raw materials often do not originate in North Korea.

Tracking these operations has become further complicated in recent years, from the perspective of sanctions violations analysis, after Russia vetoed the continuation of the Panel of Exports on the DPRK and related UN embargoes in March, 2024. As such, detailed tracking of foreign companies which engage in trade with North Korea, possibly in violation of sanctions, has remained suspended for the past two years. Moscow’s veto came six months before KPA troops were reportedly first deployed to fight alongside their Russian counterparts against Ukraine forces in Kursk, as ties with North Korea suddenly accelerated. The Panel of Experts had operated since 2009, with Russia previously choosing not to veto its operations over 15 years until 2024. Since its suspension two years ago, scrutiny on Chinese companies, which make up the bulk of trading partners with North Korea, has waned.

Sino-NK research detected numerous wig and tungsten ore companies in Liaoning province advertising or indicating trade with North Korea, apparently among the companies which are driving the recent DPRK export boom across the border. Many are based in Dandong, the trade gateway to North Korea.

Among the most explicit on its DPRK trade connection, Dandong Chenxuan Trading Company Limited (丹东晨轩贸易有限公司) describes itself as “specialising in wig making, eyelash processing” while “providing professional services such as hair weaving, hair replacement, hair extensions and hair care”. It acknowledges “years of dedicated operation in Sinuiju, North Korea”. The company states it uses “100 percent real hair, human hair”, although the origins of its raw material remain undisclosed.

Dandong Xinmeija Hair Products Company Limited (丹东市新美加发制品有限责任公司) has remained less open about its trade with the DPRK. Its profile notes:

Our company is a manufacturer of hair products integrating production, sales, and research and development. Located in Dandong, China’s largest border city, we enjoy a superior geographical location, separated from North Korea – a major center for hair supply and hand-weaving processing – by only a river.

Dandong Xinmeija does not overtly detail its economic ties with the DPRK, except that the company operates out of the “China-North Korea Friendship Development Zone in Dandong”. This is likely the Dandong Border Economic Cooperation Zone located in the city’s New District close to the New Yalu River Bridge which China is aiming to finally open this year, as reported by Sino-NK. This trade zone hosts companies which conduct business between China and the DPRK. According to its own company description, Dandong Xinmeija exports to Russia, Germany, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

Dandong Prosperous Trade Company Limited (丹东繁荣贸易有限公司) states it “invested in and built a processing base in North Korea for wigs, electronic products, and other products” in 2017, and previously advertised close-up images of its wigs online. Whether the company is still operating remains unclear: Sino-NK research was unable to locate any recent corporate registry information for Dandong Prosperous Trade, suggesting it may have already closed operations.

In 2024, RFA’s Korean language service reported it had obtained a shipment specification document which recorded the export of artificial eyelashes and wigs from a trading company in Sinuiju to a Chinese enterprise in Donggang, the adjacent port city of Dandong on the Yalu River. However, the report did not name the North Korean or Chinese companies involved.

RFA has published multiple articles, including in 2019 and 2024, which assert that the DPRK makes up shortfalls in eyelash and wig production quotas using prison labour, and that these products are shipped to Western countries, including US, supply chains. Daily NK made similar claims in 2023.

Liaoning companies which import North Korean tungsten ore remain more difficult to track, although Dandong Chengxie Trade Company Limited (丹东诚谐贸易有限公司) was found to advertise import volumes with the DPRK of between USD 10 million to USD 50 million, including in explicitly UN-sanctioned lead ore, as well as zinc and tungsten ores.

Another company, Dalian Shenghao International Logistics Co Ltd (大连晟淏国际物流有限公司), advertises import customs agency services for the import of “North Korean tungsten ore and molybdenum ore via Dalian and Dandong ports”, two of the main ports in Liaoning which ship to and from the DPRK. Many of North Korea’s tungsten mines are located in the north of the country, close to the border with China, including in North Pyongan, Ryanggang and Chagang provinces.

Recent Chinese import-export data therefore demonstrates that not only is Liaoning the major provincial trade partner of the DPRK, within China, it is also remains the key conduit for North Korean exports out of the country and into global markets.