A U. S. expert has claimed that North Korea is developing a new class of submarines, such as the Sinpo-class and Gorae-class submarines, which are larger than the regime's existing ones.

Chief analytics officer for All Source Analysis Joseph Bermudez said at a forum hosted by U.S.-based North Korea monitoring Web site 38 North on Wednesday added that the North appears to have begun designing the new submarines a few years ago. 

As Pyongyang began testing submarine launched ballistic missiles(SLBMs), North Korea experts raised speculations that the regime would manufacture larger submarines than two-thousand-ton Sinpo-class submarines in order to maximize the destructive forces of SLBMs.

During the forum, Bermudez also speculated that the latest SLBM launched by the North on Wednesday was ejected directly from a submarine, not from a submersible test-stand barge that was previously used by the North to conduct SLBM tests.

Bermudez and other experts predicted that the North would install SLBMs near the observation tower of Sinpo-class submarines.