North Korea has executed a former top finance official over the country's failed currency reform, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Thursday.

North Korea redenominated its national currency, the won, in November in a bid to curb inflation and fight black-market currency trading. But the move only led to food shortages and public outrage.

Pak Nam Gi, the ruling Workers' Party finance and planning department chief, was reportedly executed by a firing squad in Pyongyang last week.

Pak, who spearheaded the reform, was accused of wrecking the economy and harming leader Kim Jong-Il's plans to transfer power to his son, Yonhap said.

In the 1990s, a top North Korean agricultural official was reportedly shot dead after a nationwide famine.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

rd/mr