Archive for October, 2016

Push for the Development of IT Industry in North Korea

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Institute for Far Eastern studies (IFES)

North Korea is pushing the development of the IT industry. The “2016 National IT Achievements Exhibit” demonstrates the current state of affairs in the industry.

On October 5th, the official organ of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK), Rodong Sinmun, reported in detail of this exhibit. It said, “The exhibit was held under the theme of ‘self-strength-first, collective competition, and global competitiveness’.” In addition, it also reported, “The goal of the exhibit is to introduce and promote the accomplishments of the IT industry and push forward with modernization of IT technology in our own style and hold steadfast to every unit and part of science and technology as our lifeline.”

According to the news, the exhibit displayed 1,000 technical products from 260 units. There were new product presentations, discussions on the usage of products, security industry competition, and cutting-edge product exchange service, which was divided into four areas that included the IT enterprise and information security.

Units with exemplary IT—top ten IT companies, and top ten IT products—were selected based on the technical achievements and economic effectiveness.

At the opening ceremony, the Vice-Chairman of the WPK Central Committee Kim Ki Nam said, “The Party line on the science and technology is fully realized and we seized the global fortresses of cutting-edge technological sectors including IT. Now, many factories and work places of the people’s economy, enterprises have transformed to become a standard of the knowledge economy era.”

He also said, “This exhibit is an important step towards the development of globally competitive IT technology and raised the overall standard of the IT industry.” He also encouraged, “the participants to fully accept the achievements and experiences of leading units.”

Such emphasis on the development of IT can be associated with the recent reports from the Party Central Committee at the 7th Party Congress back in May, and the decision adopted by the Party Congress. According to these documents, a strong science-technology state means “a country that has reached the cutting-edge global standards in science and technology and a country where all sectors including the economy, national defense, and culture rapidly advance through the leading role played by science and technology.”

In North Korean terms, a state strong in science and technology not only encompasses IT, nanotechnology, biotech, and nuclear technologies, but also reaches global research standards in fields including machine engineering, metallurgical engineering, thermal engineering, and material engineering, (i.e., major fields of engineering), as well as the basic sciences like mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Furthermore, the aim is to produce and launch more working satellites in order to contribute to the construction of a ‘major space power’ with space science and technology capabilities.

In addition, a state strong in science and technology has placed science and technology as the main locomotive behind economic development to resolve essential problems of energy, steel, chemical products and food. Science and technology also plays the leading role in modernizing the economy and IT.

This means through the advancement of science and technology, it is attempting to resolve energy issues through the development of nuclear power and environmentally friendly energy. It also involves the development of technologies like Juche steel production technology (the production of steel that minimizes the use of imported fuel) in order to localize raw material and equipment production that is currently import-dependent as well as achieve modernization of light industry and agricultural production through scientific and industrial methods.

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IFES brief on geological surveys in North Korea

Thursday, October 6th, 2016

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

On 25th September, North Korean leader and chairman of the State Affairs Commission, Kim Jong Un, issued instructions that survey equipment should be modernized and its production domesticated using the most up-to-date science and technology, in order to decisively improve geological survey work.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North Korean government’s official newswire agency, reported on 26th September that Kim gave these instructions in a letter he sent to the Nationwide Geological Survey Department Workers Conference held at the People’s Palace of Culture on the previous day. He also stated that “Geological surveys are the core front in constructing an economically strong nation.”

In the letter, Kim emphasized the need “to create a scientific developmental strategy for the Geological Survey Department in line with the demands of constructing an economically strong nation, and this should be executed in a step-by-step fashion. Also, under the state’s unified leadership, order and discipline must be established with respect to the development of underground resources.” He went on to say, “the role and responsibility of resource protection institutions must be raised, while the state’s energy must be put into the physical-scientific protection activities of Geological Survey departments. . . . I look forward to related officials and workers bringing about a decisive improvement in geological survey work, and contribute actively to the construction of an economically strong socialist state.”

At the same time, while on a visit to the Taedong River Syringe Factory, Kim Jong Un instructed that the factory be transformed into a modernized facility.

On 23rd September, KCNA reported on Kim Jong Un’s recent on-the-spot guidance saying: “Located in the suburbs of Pyongyang, the Taedong River Syringe Factory is a large base for the production of medical equipment, having the capacity to produce a variety of syringes.”

Reminiscing, Kim also said that the factory, built in December 2000, “rose during the Arduous March, the Kanghaeng-gun Period, under direct instigation of and energetic leadership of the General [Kim Jong Il]. This was a period the enemy viciously sought to isolate us, and natural disasters meant that everyone was forced to tighten their belts.”

While at the factory, Kim Jong Un instructed that: “not only should the factory normalize a high level of production, but also completely guarantee a high level of product quality, and undertake an energetic struggle to diversify the types of syringe produced. . . . If syringe production is to be systematically raised, and different kinds of syringe and syringe needle for a range of uses are to be produced properly, there is a need to modernize the factory in line with the demands of the knowledge economy era.”

Moreover, Kim emphasized the importance of constructing a combined production system, as well as automation, and sterilization, saying: “it is the intention of the party that the Taedong Syringe Factory will become a model and standard for our country’s medical equipment production facilities by modernizing.”

In 2007, when South Korean medical aid was offered to the North in relation to North-South medical projects, the North Korean side expressed the hope that needed supplies would be given as aid, saying: “syringes, needles and cotton balls are most needed.” They even proposed that the South Korean government aid in the construction of a syringe factory, saying “a syringe is only used once.” It is a noteworthy change that North Korea has now begun producing syringes for itself.

Article source:
‘Geological Surveys’ Are Core Front in Constructing Economically Strong Nation
IFES NK Briefs, Institute for Far Eastern Studies
2016-10-06

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The problem with the Red Cross narrative of North Korea’s floods

Wednesday, October 5th, 2016

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

I had originally intended to use this post solely to encourage readers to check out this story by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Asia Pacific. But as I was reading through the story, I realized there are several issues with it that need to be pointed out. It offers a comprehensive narrative of this year’s flooding in northern North Korea, which has devastated parts of North Hamgyong province. The photographs add a crucial human dimension to the ghastly figures for the damage. But unfortunately, the IFRC casts blame in all the wrong directions and fails to point out the core of the problem.

First, the key passages of the piece:

On August 29 the rains began. They continued for the next two days, swelling the Tumen river as it coursed along the northeast border of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  The heavy downpour was a consequence of the tail end of Typhoon Lionrock which had collided with a low pressure weather front as it tracked across China.  In just 24 hours up to 300 mm of rain fell over parts of DPRK’s North Hamgyong Province.

Streams of water flowed down barren mountains. They merged in ravines to become raging torrents of water – flash floods – which carved through rural communities in the valleys below, demolishing everything in their path.  The River Tumen also burst its banks, swallowing entire settlements in the dead of night.

The floods are considered to be the worst in decades yet this has been a silent disaster, largely unnoticed outside DPRK.  Hundreds of lives have been lost and the scale of devastation has been immense.

Now, one month on, the full extent of what happened is still emerging. According to the government some 30,000 homes have been damaged, submerged or completely destroyed and 70,000 people rendered homeless.

[…]

For days villages across Musan and Yonson Counties remained cut off as thousands of rescuers were mobilised to the area to repair roads and bridges and remove the earth and rocks deposited by landslides.

In the Sambong Bo area of Musan County,  the water level of the River Tumen had risen by over four metres in a matter of hours. When it broke its banks 500 homes were swept away.  At least 20 other communities further along the river suffered the same fate. It is still not clear how many died.

Reaching the flood-affected area requires a three-day drive from the capital Pyongyang but it only took 24 hours for the DPRK Red Cross to mobilize over 1,000 of its volunteers from the area to respond to the disaster. They supported local authorities in search and rescue efforts and also provided first aid services to the injured. Trained disaster response teams were deployed and within days emergency relief supplies for 28,000 people had been released from the Red Cross regional disaster preparedness stocks which were stored in warehouses in South Hamgyong and Pyongyang.

Items such as tarpaulins, tents and tools to make emergency shelters were distributed to flood-affected families. People also received other essentials such as warm bedding, kitchen sets, water containers and toiletries.

[…]

But there are other vulnerabilities. According to the UN, North Hamgyong Province has some of the highest levels of stunting and wasting among under five children. The Public Distribution System, upon which 78 per cent of the population of the province relies, is well below target levels (300 grams compared to the target of 573 grams) and not sufficiently diverse to cover nutritional requirements.

The floods damaged over 27,000 hectares of arable land. The rice and corn were ready to be harvested but now, many families’ food has been washed away along with crops, livestock and food gardens.

To make matters worse, more than 45 health clinics have been damaged by floodwaters and there is a critical shortage of basic equipment and essential medicines. Water supply to 600,000 people across the province has been disrupted and for clean water, some communities are now dependent on a few hand pumps and dug wells, which are most likely contaminated by the floods.

On 21 September, the IFRC launched a 15.2 million Swiss Francs emergency appeal (USD 15.5 million, Euros 13.9 million) to reach more than 330,000 people affected by the floods.

The appeal aims to provide a variety of emergency assistance over the next 12 months. Emergency water supply will be installed and teams will be mobilised to avert communicable diseases by improving sanitation and promoting good hygiene. Medical supplies will be provided for health teams on the ground and technical support provided to help with the reconstruction of permanent homes.

The appeal will also be used to purchase winterization kits that will help thousands of families through the hardship of the coming months. These include supplies of coal for heating and cooking, toiletries, winter clothes and quilts, basic food stocks and water purification tablets.

But according to Chris Staines international help needs to scale up.

“This is a disaster on a scale that that no-one seems to have acknowledged. When you add up all the threats that people are facing today in DPRK there is a very real risk of a secondary disaster unfolding in the months ahead if we don’t get the help that is needed immediately”.

Full article here:
Suffering in Silence
IFRC Asia
Shorthand Social
2016-09-29

Undoubtedly, this is a tragedy on a scale that is difficult to fathom even with the accompanying pictures of some of the devastation. Readers who wish to donate to the IFRC disaster relief efforts can do so here.

But the narrative lacks a crucial component, namely the government’s responsibility in disaster management and prevention, and the connection between the economic system and North Korea’s recurring floods. Now, readers familiar with the North Korean NGO context will be well aware that this is a sensitive political topic that NGOs and aid organizations are often reluctant to discuss, for good reasons. They depend on maintaining good relations with the North Korean government in order to continue operating in the country, and these relations are sensitive at best.

That said, the way in which the IFRC narrative seems to fault only one party — the international community, for not giving the disaster more attention — is strange, to say the least. For it is not the international community that has created the systemic deficiencies that contribute to making floods a yearly recurring phenomenon. Rain clouds do not gather only over North Korea. Anyone who has spent late summer and fall in South Korea will be familiar with the torrential rains that sweep across the country on the same regular basis that they hit North Korea. And yet, we never hear about human suffering and disasters in South Korea on an even comparable level with those that hit North Korea. Some landslides tend to happen, and sometimes the rains even claim lives. But they do not paralyze whole regions of the country and they do not cause humanitarian disasters on the southern side of the border.

The reasons that North Korea is hit with such particularly great damage from the rains, year after year, largely stem from its economic system. To name only a couple of examples: trees have been felled en masse due to a lack of fuel, causing erosion as not enough trees are left to suck up the rainwater, and the population has had to resort to clearing hills from trees to generate more farmland, particularly during the “Arduous March” of the 1990s. Moreover, in command economies, quotas for both wood and food need to be filled no matter what methods have to be employed — I am unable to find a source for the historical evolution of tree felling in North Korea prior to the 1990s, but most likely, such a logic has also contributed to the barren hillsides around the country. To be fair, Kim Jong-un has focused a great deal of attention on reforestation, which is arguably one of the most important but least noted policy focuses during his tenure. But thus far, not much seems to have happened in practice.

Barren and eroded hillsides in Namyang, North Hamgyong Province, as seen from Tumen City in China, June 2016. On the Chinese side, the equivalent hills are covered with trees. Photograph by Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Barren and eroded hillsides in Namyang, North Hamgyong Province, as seen from Tumen City in China, June 2016. On the Chinese side, the equivalent hills are covered with trees. Photograph by Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

So: on the one hand, the IFRC may well be right that coverage of North Korea’s humanitarian disaster should render more media coverage. But on the other hand the late summer floods are such a regular occurrence that they should hardly count as news anymore. NGOs and aid organizations need to air on the side of political caution in their dealings with the North Korean regime, but their failure to call out the government for not rectifying the problems causing the damage in the first place may well be doing more harm than good in the long run.

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North Korean GDP per capita over $1,000 for the first time ever last year, says Hyundai

Tuesday, October 4th, 2016

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Someone once said that if anyone ever gives you a number on anything related to the North Korean economy and they include a decimal, you can be sure that they are wrong. This almost certainly holds true for the GDP estimates for North Korea that come out every year.

Earlier this year, South Korea’s Bank of Korea estimated that North Korean GDP had contracted by 1.1%, for the first time since 2010. Now, Hyundai Research Institute claims that nominal GDP per capita in fact went above $1,000, putting North Korea roughly on the same level as South Korea in the mid-1970s. Unless North Korea’s population declined very suddenly and drastically during the last year (which it didn’t, of course), both claims cannot hold true at the same time. I am personally more inclined to believe the directionality (though not necessarily the exact figure) of Hyundai’s estimate:

North Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita surpassed US$1,000 for the first time last year despite heavy sanctions imposed following a series of nuclear and missile tests, a Seoul-based think tank said Thursday.
Hyundai Research Institute estimated North Korea’s nominal GDP per capita at $1,013 in 2015, up from $930 from the previous year, based on its own income analysis model.

The reclusive state’s nominal GDP reached $986 in 1987, but has since declined to around $650 in the early 2000s.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the North produced 4.78 million tons of crops in 2015, a 10.7-percent fall from a year earlier, due to severe drought. The price of rice per 1 kilogram surged 5.6 percent on-year to 5,200 won (US$4.73).

Trade with China was valued at $5.71 billion won last year, down 16.8 percent from 2014, mainly due to a drop in the North’s exports of natural resources to its largest trading partner.

In contrast, inter-Korean trade rose 15.6 percent on-year to $2.71 billion in 2015, the institute said.

The international community’s aid to Pyongyang was tallied at $31.87 million last year, up 12.4 percent from a year ago, but less than 2011’s $97.11 million, it noted.

The research institute evaluated the communist state’s economic power is equivalent to that of South Korea in the mid-1970s.

North Korea’s per-capita GDP lags far behind of other Asian nations, including China ($7,990), Vietnam ($2,088) and Laos ($1,799). It is even below other underdeveloped countries, such as Bangladesh ($1,287) and Myanmar ($1,292), according to the institute.

“North Korea’s current economy is not capable of standing alone,” said Kim Cheon-koo, a researcher at Hyundai Research Institute. “The wide income gap between South and North Koreas is expected to create massive costs for reunification.”

Full article here:
N. Korea’s per-capita GDP tops US$1,000 in 2015: report
Yonhap News
2016-09-29

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