North Korea risks trailing economically if it does not allow access to the internet, Google Inc executive chairman Eric Schmidt said Thursday.
He told journalists in Beijing that he travelled to Pyongyang to exchange opinions about the open use of the internet.
North Korea is one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries where access to the internet and freedom of expression are curtailed.
The Google chief's visit there with Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was a private one, Schmidt said.
During their visit, which began Monday, Richardson called on the Stalinist state to stop its atomic and missile tests.