According to the AFP:
North Korea should first open dialogue with the world if it wants foreign investment to revive its troubled economy, a senior World Bank official said Monday.
Jim Adams, World Bank vice president for East Asia and Pacific, said it had yet to be approached by Pyongyang in connection with its reported plan to raise foreign funds by setting up its own development bank.
Adams, in Tokyo to meet Japanese officials and lawmakers, said it was a “key challenge” for the communist state to first map out its own plan to approach the outside world.
“Once those decisions are made, I think there can be an appropriate response,” Adams told a news conference. “But so far I don’t see those decisions having been made.”
There is no doubt that the DPRK needs foreign investment. The problem is credible commitment to contract terms and the kinds of concessions investors will require.
