North Korea hopes that its financial problems will be solved with the long-awaited return of its funds frozen in a tiny Macao bank. It wants the move to be taken to show that there is no danger in doing business with a state accused of counterfeiting and money laundering.

For its part, the US believes that the return of the cash will remove a stumbling block to progress on the real issue: North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, which has been obscured amid Pyongyang’s insistence on resolving the saga of the cash held by Banco Delta Asia.