The U.N. Security Council plans to adopt a new package of sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday with a focus on significantly cutting the North's exports of coal, a key source of hard currency for the regime, a report said.



The United States and China worked out the resolution last week after months of negotiations. It has since been circulated among other members of the 15-member council, including the three other veto-holding permanent members, Britain, France and Russia.



Wednesday's session is expected to be a formality as all have agreed to the resolution, sources said.



According to Reuters, the new sanctions center on putting a cap on North Korea's total exports of coal at 7.5 million tons or $400.9 million. That would represent more than a 60 percent or some $700 million cut in the North's annual exports of coal, one of the biggest sources of foreign revenues.



The resolution also added copper, nickel, silver and zinc to the list of minerals the North is banned from exporting. The previous resolution, adopted in March in response to the North's fourth nuclear test, banned exports of coal, gold, titanium, vanadium and rare earth metals.



In addition, the resolution tightens screws in the maritime and financial sectors, which could cut the North's revenues by about $100 million a year, according to the report. In total, the resolution could reduce the North's annual revenues by $800 million, the report said.



The new resolution also imposes sanctions on 11 North Korean officials and 10 entities, including Pyongyang's ambassadors to Egypt and Myanmar, and bans the North's exports of statues, another source of foreign money, according to the report.



It also requires U.N. member nations to reduce the number of officials at North Korea's foreign missions and limit the number of bank accounts to one per North Korean diplomatic mission and one per diplomat, according to the report.



Should the resolution be adopted as scheduled on Wednesday, it would come 82 days after the North's fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9. That underlines the difficulty in persuading China to agree to strong sanctions on its provocative communist neighbor.



After the North's fifth nuclear test, the Security Council immediately vowed to impose fresh sanctions on Pyongyang, but has been unable to do so as the U.S. and China have struggled to narrow differences on how strong new sanctions should be.



The main point of contention in the negotiations was the U.S. demand for banning all of North Korea's exports of coal, including exports for "livelihood purposes," which was excluded in the previous sanctions.



Closing the loophole was the main U.S. goal in the negotiations, but China has balked at it. (Yonhap)



