North Korean Economy Watch

According to the Daily NK:

New information suggests that the price of rice across North Korea now stands at more than 3,000 won per kilo, the highest market price since the currency redenomination of November 2009.

A source from Yanggang Province told The Daily NK on Friday, “The price of a kilo of rice has finally hit 3,000 won, having been only 2,600 won at the start of October. The won has gone down against the Chinese Yuan too, with one Chinese Yuan worth 515 North Korean won.”

Yesterday, a source from Sinuiju revealed that the cost of rice there has also risen to 3,000 won a kilo, saying, “People are bewildered as to why the cost of food has gone up so much, even though even the corn harvest has been gathered.” Sinuiju is always among the cheapest place to buy rice in North Korea due to its proximity to the major Chinese trading city of Dandong.

The situation is particularly surprising because the arrival of the autumn harvest would ordinarily be expected to drive down grain prices, or at the very least hold them steady. However, this year has seen poor weather feed concerns over crop yields, leading to rising prices throughout August and September. The average price in July, 2,000 won, was 2,500 won by late August. The exchange rate for Chinese Yuan has also been rising.

Some are predicting that the price fluctuations will level off with the end of the autumn harvest, while others believe that prices will simply move with the exchange rate, meaning greater uncertainty.

Read the full story here:
Rice Price Spike Defying Expectations
Daily NK
Kang Mi Jin
2011-10-15

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2011-9-29

This year’s trade volume between China and the DPRK reached an all time high.

According to the (South) Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency, the trade volume between China and North Korea between January and July of 2011 recorded 3.097 billion USD, surpassing last year’s 3.472 billion USD by 88 percent.

This is the second year since 2008 for the yearly trade volume to continue to break the record of the previous year.

During the same period, China exported 1.783 billion USD and imported 1.314 billion USD to North Korea. Compared to the same period last year, exports increased by 53.3 percent while imports increased by 169.2 percent, and its trade surplus decreased by 30.4 percent.

The main exports of China are oil, diesel freight vehicles, nitrogenous fertilizers, and grains while the top imports were anthracites, steel, and non-alloy pig irons.

The total amount of fertilizer North Korea imported between January and June totaled 193,960 tons (equaling about 39.88 million USD), a hike of 91 percent against last year’s 99,588 tons (25.4 million USD).

The price per ton of imported fertilizers was 188 USD for ammonium sulfate fertilizer (164,456 ton) and 346 USD for urea fertilizers (25,577 ton). Last year, 59,110 tons of ammonium sulfate fertilizer and 45,310 tons of urea fertilizer were imported. A drastically higher amount of ammonium sulfate fertilizer was imported this year compared with the previous year, the cause of which is speculated to be either a radical decrease in the fertilizer production in North Korea or an attempt to improve the country’s food production.

The total amount of grains imported from China from January to June totaled 149,173 tons, a boost of 5.5 percent from the previous year. The price of grain per ton went up from 372 USD to 404 USD, a rise of 8.6 percent. The cost of imported grain increased 14.4 percent against last year, an increase from 52.7 million USD to 63.1 million USD.

The grains imported were corn (38.2 percent), flour (37.5 percent), rice (16.9 percent), and bean (7.2 percent). Compared to last year, corn and flour imports rose while rice and bean slightly decreased. This year’s average price per ton of grain was 661 USD for bean, 538 USD for rice, 395 USD for flour, and 304 USD for corn.

According to Yonhap:

North Korea imported nearly three times as much grain from China in August as last year, an expert said Thursday, an unusual increase that may suggest food shortages in the impoverished nation have worsened.

The North purchased 47,978 tons of corn, flour and rice in August, up from 16,723 tons in the same period of last year, said Kwon Tae-jin, a North Korea expert at the Korea Rural Economic Institute.

“It is unusual that the North increased grain imports sharply in August ahead of the harvest season in fall,” Kwon said. “It is believed that the North increased imports as its grain stock is falling low.”

The North imported 216,535 tons of grain from China in the first eight months, a rise of 20 percent compared to the same period last year.

China is the North’s key ally, economic benefactor and diplomatic supporter.

North Korea suffered devastating floods in recent months that washed away tens of thousands of hectares of farmland, damage that is feared to threaten its already fragile food situation.

The North has relied on international handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.

Back in June 2011, Yonhap reported:

North Korea imported more than 50,000 tons of grains from its key ally China in May, an expert said Thursday, amid chronic food shortages in the North.

The North purchased 50,328 tons of corn, flour and rice in May, up 31.5 percent compared to the same period last year, said Kwon Tae-jin, a North Korea expert at the Korea Rural Economic Institute.

The North also imported 114,300 tons of fertilizer from China in the first five months, a rise of 39 percent compared to the same period last year, Kwon said, citing figures from Seoul’s Korea International Trade Association.

China is the North’s last remaining ally, key economic benefactor and diplomatic supporter.

In March, the U.N. food agency appealed for 430,000 tons of food aid to feed 6 million vulnerable North Korean people, a quarter of the country’s population.

Washington sent its delegation to North Korea in May to assess the food situation, though no decision on food aid has been made yet.

The North has relied on international handouts since the late 1990s when it suffered a massive famine that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.

However, the outside aid has dwindled following the North’s missile and nuclear tests and other provocations.

There are basically two conflicting narratives being played out in the media in regards to this kind of news. The first narrative is that heavy seasonal floods and typhoon damage wiped out a large percentage of North Korea’s fall harvest and they are in desperate need of food assistance. The second narrative is that the DPRK is boosting food stocks in advance of 2012, the year the country is supposed to transition into a “Strong and Prosperous Country” (according to official propaganda). Since the DPRK’s appeal for large-scale food aid has gone largely ignored by the international community (despite the best efforts of organizations like the UNWFP and charities like Samaritan’s Purse), the country is forced to increase food stocks through international trade if it wants to live up to the expectations it has created among the domestic population.  Meeting these expectations is especially important right now as they will play an important role in facilitating the leadership  transition to Kim Jong-il’s designated successor, Kim Jong-un.

I have been posting stories about this year’s food shortage here (though neglected for a couple of weeks).

Read the full stories here:
N. Korea’s grain imports from China increase threefold
Yonhap
2011-9-29

N. Korea increases grain imports from China
Yonhap
2011-6-30

Click images for larger view.

According to KCNA (2011-9-22):

New posters have been produced in the DPRK to help more splendidly spruce up Pyongyang and hasten the harvest this year.

Poster “Let’s develop Pyongyang, the capital city of revolution, into a world-class city!” vividly reflects citizens all out to turn their city into a more beautiful and magnificent one.

Poster “Let us all go for harvesting!” depicts an agricultural worker at work with joy against the background of a coop field alive with harvesting. It arouses the people to go out for reaping in good time the crops cultivated with the sweat of their brow during spring and summer.

Click here to learn more about Pongyang’s recent renovations.

Over the last couple of decades, Pyongyang has shown a callous reluctance to part with its foreign currency reserves to acquire the necessary amount of food needed to sustain its population.  The DPRK government has, however, promoted a number of domestic initiatives, some financed locally and others with international assistance, intended to boost regional food security (and decrease individual mobility) which have cost it little in the way of scarce foreign currency. Some of these projects have been previously documented on this web page: The construction of regional fish and fruit farms, as well as large-scale land rezoning, land-reclamation (and here), and sea-scaping projects.

Today the Russian media reports yet another clever idea the North Koreans are pursuing to increase domestic food production: renting farmland in Eastern Russia.  According to RIA Novosti:

A delegation from North Korea, which is facing severe food shortages, has held talks with authorities of the Amur region in Russia’s Far East on leasing land to grow vegetables and grain, a regional official said on Thursday.

North Korea plans to rent several hundred thousand hectares of land in the Amur region, which has about 200,000 hectares of idle land in regional, municipal or private ownership.

“The North Korean authorities are planning an unprecedented agricultural project – to create a farm in the Far East to grow soybeans, potatoes, corn and other crops. Everything that Korean citizens need, because the issue of food shortages there are acute from time to time due to land shortages,” the official told RIA Novosti.

North Korean state media said the country’s chronic food problems have been exacerbated by heavy rains in June and July. A tropical storm washed away or inundated 60,000 hectares of land in farm regions.

Amur region minister of foreign economic relations Igor Gorevoi said the land must not be abandoned.

“We are also interested in investment in farm machinery and equipment. Another key condition is that the newly-formed Korean company must be registered in the Amur region, which means tax revenue for the budget,” he said.

The initial lease of the land, which is to be auctioned off, amounts to 50 rubles ($1.70) a year per hectare.

The Korean delegation plans to consider the terms of the lease next week.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, whose country faces increasing international isolation because of its nuclear program, visited Russia in August in his own armored train on a rare foreign trip and had talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Russia then promised to send 50,000 tons of grain to Pyongyang.

It will be interesting to see if this project can be realized.

Additional Information:

Kim Jong-il recently met Russian president Medvedev in this area.

Russia is sending 50,000 tons of grain to the DPRK in flood relief.

Read the full story here:
North Korea to rent farm land in Russia’s Far East
RIA Novosti
2011-9-1

Pictured Above (Google Earth ): The initial phase of the Taedonggang Fruit Farm (대동강과일종합가공공장) in Samsok-guyok, Pyongyang.  See in Google Maps here.

KCNA recently published the following article on the fruit farm (2011-8-12):

The Taedonggang Combined Fruit Farm in Pyongyang attracts admiration from foreign visitors.

After visiting the farm, Martin Lotscher, chairman of the Switzerland-Korea Committee, said the farm is associated with benevolent politics pursued by leader Kim Jong Il and that such an amazing farm can never be found in other countries.

Anders Karlsson, chairman of the Communist Party of Sweden, said the farm offers a glimpse of Kim Jong Il’s strenuous effort for providing the people with a happy life, as well as advantages of the socialist economy.

It is incredible that this large and wonderful fruit farm was built in only three years.

Mamoru Kitahara, chairman of the Fukuoka Prefectural Association for Japan－DPRK Friendship, said he deemed it a great honor to visit the fruit farm at a time when the Korean people were striving hard to build a thriving nation.

He congratulated the Korean people on the tremendous achievements they made under the leadership of Kim Jong Il.

The North Korean media has reported on this farm dozens of times, but it has never mentioned that the apple trees in the Taedonggang Fruit Farm were supplied by a European company.  This same firm may have also supplied apple trees to similar new fruit farms in the DPRK (Kosan and Toksong fruit farms), though I am unsure of their direct involvement beyond the Taedonggang fruit farm.

Some other interesting gossip about the area:

1. The farm is probably the best-defended in the world.  It is surrounded on all sides by dozens of KPA units, HARTs, and anti-aircraft positions.  Looking at the level-1 roads in Pyongyang, it is also likely that Kim Jong-il drives through the farm every time he commutes from downtown Pyongyang to his Kangdong residence.

2. The farm is located just north of Wonhung-ri (원흥리).  There are some villas hidden back in the woods (to the south of the farm) and I believe that Shin Sang-ok and  Choi Eun-hee spent some time here.  If a reader in South Korea could get Ms. Choi to confirm, I would appreciate it!

According to Yonhap:

North Korea imported more corn and less rice from China in the first half of this year than in the same period a year ago apparently due to a lack of foreign cash, a study showed Sunday.

North Korea’s grain imports from the neighboring country in the six-month period consisted of 38.2 percent corn, 37.5 percent flour, 16.9 percent rice and 7.2 percent beans, according to an analysis of the two countries’ trade by Kwon Tae-jin, vice president of the Korea Rural Economic Institute.

Last year, the figures stood at 34.2 percent flour, 28.8 percent corn, 19.3 percent rice and 16.4 percent beans, indicating an overall increase in imports of cheaper grains such as corn and flour this year, according to the study based on data from the Korea International Trade Association. Imports of rice and beans, meanwhile, fell from the same period last year.

This year, imports of beans cost $661 per ton on average, while a ton of rice, flour and corn sold for $538, $395 and $304, respectively.

The total amount of grain imports rose 5.5 percent to 149,173 tons, up from 141,395 tons in the first half of last year, apparently reflecting food shortages in the impoverished nation, the study said. Grain imports cost US$404 per ton on average, up 8.6 percent from $372 last year, bringing the total cost to $60.3 million, or 14.4 percent more than last year.

“The amount of grain imports last year was larger than in most years, but the fact that (North Korea) imported even more this year seems to indicate a shortage of food,” Kwon said in his study. “The larger imports of corn than beans or rice appears to be the result of a lack of foreign currency.”

Meanwhile, North Korea also boosted its imports of fertilizers by 91 percent in the first half of this year, buying a total of 190,396 tons compared with 99,588 tons in the same period last year. The country bought more than 164,000 tons of ammonium sulfate, which is sold at $188 per ton, while only importing some 25,000 tons of urea for $346 per ton.

“It seems like either fertilizer production in North Korea has dropped significantly, or they are aiming to boost their food production by a large amount,” Kwon said.

The Daily NK also published a story on these findings.

Read the full story here:
Lack of foreign cash forces N. Korea to buy more corn, less rice
Yonhap
2011-8-14

Pictured above (Google Earth): Kumsong Tractor Plant (금성뜨락또르공장).  See in Google Maps here.

According to Reuters:

North Korea wants to import Cambodian rice to try to ease food shortages and has offered in return to provide machinery and expertise to develop Cambodia’s fledgling mining and energy sectors, a Cambodian official said on Wednesday.

A North Korean delegation led by Deputy Trade Minister Ri Myong-san visited Cambodia this week and the country is keen to import rice as soon as possible, said Ouch Borith, Cambodia’s secretary of state for foreign affairs.

It would help Cambodia develop its mining sector and invest in hydropower dams.

The amount of rice North Korea wanted to import was not disclosed, he said. Further specific details, such as how North Korea would fund its purchases and investments, were not available.

Cambodia is the world’s 15th biggest producer of rice and has set a target of exporting 1 million tonnes of the grain within the next four years.

According to the Economic Institute of Cambodia (EIC), an independent think tank, the country is expected to ship about 100,000 tonnes of milled rice this year, up from 50,000 tonnes in 2010. More goes to Vietnam to be milled and shipped from there.

North Korea is one of the world’s poorest countries and it rarely produces enough food to feed its 24 million people, often as a result of bad weather affecting harvests.

International sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme combined with neighbouring South Korea’s refusal to provide help have led to a substantial decline in food aid from its traditional donors.

Although Cambodia and North Korea have no trade ties, they have a diplomatic relationship. Cambodia’s former King Norodom Sihanouk has a house in North Korea and was once a special guest of the country’s late ruler, Kim Il-sung.

Ouch Borith said North Korea had offered to sell agricultural machinery to Cambodia, such as tractors, at cheaper prices than Western countries and wanted to provide expertise in developing mines.

“We have only small and medium-sized enterprises, not big industries, but Cambodia’s natural resources are huge, such as minerals, gold, iron and aluminum,” he told reporters.

“Our friends the Koreans said they would do studies and use their experience to help Cambodia make an industry from these natural resources.”

Agriculture forms the biggest part of Cambodia’s $10 billion economy, followed by tourism and garment manufacturing, but it is also trying to develop its energy and mining sectors.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea wants to buy Cambodian rice, invest in mining
Reuters
2011-7-27

UPDATE: Martyn Williams notes how the DPRK has been caught photo shopping news pictures which portray flood damage. They have done similar work before (and maybe here too).

What a great way to begin a business relationship!

ORIGINAL POST:

Pictured above (Google Earth): Counties reported flooded by the DPRK

According to KCNA (July 16):

Heavy rains hit different parts of the DPRK from July 12 to 15, causing damage.

Hard hit were North and South Hwanghae provinces and South Hamgyong Province.

Rainfall registered more than 250 mm in all parts of South Hwanghae Province.

The downpour left at least 15,000 hectares of farmland inundated, taking the province as a whole. 10,000 hectares of them completely went under water and a lot of dwelling houses, public buildings and roads were destroyed.

More than 3,000 hectares of paddy and non-paddy fields were submerged or brought under silt in Chongdan County. Haeju City, Thaethan, Ongjin, Pyoksong, Jaeryong and Sinchon counties were also hit hard by torrential rain.

Several dykes were destroyed and at least 5,900 hectares of paddy and non-paddy fields were inundated or brought under silt in North Hwanghae Province.

Heavy rains caused damage to some parts of South Hamgyong Province.

Torrential rain hit Hamhung City on Thursday and Friday, leaving dwelling houses destroyed and causing casualties. It also left hundreds of hectares of farmland completely inundated and roads destroyed to bring traffic to suspension.

Steps are being taken to recover from the damage in the afflicted areas.

UPDATE 2 (2011-9-2): According to KBS:

The Voice of America (VOA) reported Friday that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed that North Korean universities were ordered to suspend studies.

In a report on North Korea covering the first half of 2011, the International Red Cross said that all universities in the Communist nation had been on leave since June to work on construction sites in regions including Pyongyang. The report said the enforced leave of absence will likely continue into April next year during the centennial celebration of the birth of late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung.

VOA said the report appears to have been confirmed by a North Korean authority, as it contained the contact number of a North Korean Red Cross official.

UPDATE 1 (2011-7-11): According to the Daily NK:

Large numbers of additional soldiers and students have been mobilized to try and address the slipping schedule for the construction of 100,000 homes in Pyongyang by 2012, with universities in the capital and some bigger local universities having received a ‘socialist construction mobilization order’ in mid-June.

A Pyongyang source, explaining the situation today, said, “I know that students from universities in Pyongyang like Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology have been sent to the construction of 100,000 houses. I hear that they will be at the construction site for at least two months or more.”

The mobilization could easily be extended depending on the status of the construction project, he further added.

Another source from North Hamkyung Province reported similar news on the 7th, saying, “Since July, juniors and seniors from No. 1 and 2 Colleges of Education in Chongjin have been mobilized for construction projects under the ‘socialist construction mobilization order,’” and confirming that the students have been sent to Pyongyang.

He went on, “I hear that the center (meaning Party central authorities) notified each university of the number of people required for the Pyongyang construction work. Accordingly, each university selected a certain number of students and sent them to Pyongyang.”

However, the order does not appear to amount to a full, nationwide shutdown of universities. For example, certainly some universities in Yangkang Province have evaded the mobilization order. One college student living in Hyesan, the provincial capital said, “There has been no ‘socialist construction mobilization order’ handed down. We are going on summer vacation in late July.”

Mobilized personnel are reportedly working primarily on construction in neighborhoods where major public works idolizing the Kim family are to be found.

The Pyongyang source reported, “Construction of houses in Changjeon Street, where the Suryeong’s statue is, started in early May. Soldiers have been mobilized to this construction site in large numbers; even some previously involved in construction in the Hyeongjesan district have been in that region for about a week.”

He added, “Equally, the Mansudae region (Kim Il Sung’s birth place) is another place where ‘construction must be completed even if it is not completed elsewhere’, so they have mobilized people from construction sites in other regions.”

According to sources, the pace of construction in those places where soldiers have been mobilized is markedly quicker than elsewhere, although interior construction remains problematic because it calls for special materials.

One source reported, “In Seopo and Hadang 2-dong, where there are soldiers, buildings have already been erected, so people can move in there in August. However, the interiors have not been completed, so people don’t actually want to move in.”

However, on those sites staffed by people from enterprises, events are characterized by a lack of basic materials and the siphoning off of what is available.

The source said, “They are short of materials, while individuals are selling off existing materials and cement to buy rice because the authorities are not providing them with any support. Of the construction overseen by enterprise work units, almost none have been erected. In Hyeongjesan district, with the exception of those sites for which soldiers are responsible, they have only erected the bottom floor.”

According to one source, on April 1st the National Defense Commission ordered, “Complete the construction of 100,000 homes by April 15th, 2012 and get people to move into the new homes without condition.”

However, reports suggest widespread skepticism of this, with one source saying, “According to rumors, there was even a threat, ‘Those in charge of construction who cannot complete it must prepare to leave their posts.’ However, there are many people saying that the 100,000 houses won’t even be done by 2017.”

See more on the priority construction projects here.

ORIGINAL POST (2011-6-30): According to the University World News (thanks to a reader):

Close watchers of North Korean affairs were caught on the hop this week by reports that universities in the hermit kingdom would be closed from 27 June for up to 10 months while students are sent to work on farms, in factories and in construction.

Diplomats in Pyongyang confirmed that students were being drafted into manual labour on the outskirts of the city until April next year to prepare for major celebrations to commemorate the centenary of the late leader Kim Il Sung’s birthday. But they said this did not mean the closure of universities.

Reports originating in South Korea and Japan suggested that the Pyongyang government had ordered universities to cancel classes until April next year, exempting only students graduating in the next few months and foreign students.

The reports said the students would be put to work on construction projects in major cities and on other works in a bid to rebuild the economy. This could indicate that the country’s food crisis and economic problems are worse than previously thought.

Experts on North Korea said full-scale university closures would be unprecedented. However, it was not unusual for students to be engaged in manual labour, with the academic year sometimes shortened in order to send students onto farms and construction sites.

Peter Hughes, British Ambassador to North Korea, told University World News by email from Pyongyang: “There has been no official announcement in DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] about university students being sent to carry out manual labour for the next 10 months, but I can confirm that students from all the universities in Pyongyang have been mobilised to work at construction sites in the outskirts of the city until April 2012.

“Some two years ago the DPRK announced that it would build 200,000 units of accommodation in the city to ease the chronic housing shortage. To date only some 10,000 units have been built, so the students have been taken out of universities in order to speed up the construction of the balance before major celebrations take place in April 2012 to commemorate the 100th birthday of the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung.”

Universities are not closed as lecturers and postgraduate and foreign students remain on campuses, Hughes said on Thursday.

“The UK has an English language teacher training programme at three universities in Pyongyang. The mobilisation of the students should not affect this programme as the majority of activity is focused upon teacher development and not teaching students.”

Charles Armstrong, Director of the Centre for Korea Research at Columbia University who returned from Pyongyang earlier last week, said he had visited two state-run universities, Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang, as well as the private Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) in the last few weeks.

At the two public universities the vast majority of students were not present, Armstrong told University World News. “It is also a very busy time for rice transplanting and you see a lot of young people in the fields.”

However, students were studying as normal at PUST, a postgraduate institution funded by Korean-American and South Korean philanthropists that teaches mainly engineering.

“It is very hard to get information in and out of the country and there may be some confusion because every summer students have to go down to the fields to help with the rice planting. It is not the first time that I have heard reports that universities have shut down for a period,” Armstrong said.

“My impression is that there is not a lot going on in terms of teaching and studying in public universities and student time is taken up with ‘extra curricular’ activities including political education. This is a regular part of university life but I have not heard of the universities being shut down completely except for a short while during the 1990s [famine],” he added.

A major famine and economic crisis in the late 1990s meant that much farm equipment went unused and simply rusted in the fields, so the need for manual labour has grown. Students and army recruits are mobilised to help, often having to travel far from where they live.

“My understanding of the university system is that it is largely dysfunctional. Resources are lacking, many professors spend their time earning from private tuition – so my impression is that it would not make a great deal of difference if they are shut down,” said Armstrong.

Aidan Foster-Carter, a writer and researcher on North Korea, formerly at Leeds University in England, said: “North Korea sets great store by these anniversaries. They decreed a few years ago that 2012 would be their date for becoming a great and prosperous nation defined in economic terms. It would make sense having extra persons out there to help with construction, though normally it is the army that does it.”

But any mass use of student labour for longer than the summer vacation months would mean a trade-off against achieving economic goals that required educated workers, he said.

“North Korea’s is a strange and broken economy but they also need educated people to pull them out and it would be a major precedent to close the universities. It could be a sign that they are in a worse mess than we thought.”

Hazel Smith, professor of security and resilience at Cranfield University who also lectures at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University, said North Korean universities were operating as usual in and outside the capital when she was there in May.

She said it would be counterproductive for the regime to close universities. Despite huge labour shortages throughout the country, the regime is “fully aware that people need to be taught IT and technology and of course nuclear [engineering].

“They are dependent to fulfill their economic goals on people who are computer literate and engaged in advanced science. I don’t think [closures] will last very long. There are too many other priorities to deal with.”

Analysts in Japan and South Korea suggested there could be other reasons behind the decision to disperse the students across the country, including the possibility of demonstrations at campuses inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, which began at universities.

They noted that North Korea had purchased anti-riot equipment from China in recent months, including tear gas and batons, while there has been an increased police presence at key points in Pyongyang in recent weeks.

Foster-Carter said North Korea watchers have been closely monitoring for signs of unrest since the spring, but there had not been any.

“The amount of information from the Middle East reaching the ordinary citizen is very, very limited and there has been nothing at all in the official media,” Armstrong said. “There has been no student unrest that we know of for the last 50 years.”

According to North Korea analysts, party controls are in place to prevent student uprisings, including political indoctrination and strong surveillance. Some analysts said surveillance on campuses had relaxed in recent years because many party officials had not been paid.

However, experts agreed that the possibility of universities being shut would be an ominous sign of tension. “The most likely reason [to shut universities down completely] would be for military mobilisation if they thought they were going to be attacked,” Smith said.

Read the full story here:
North Korea: Learning stops as students sent to work
University World News
Yojana Sharma
2011-6-30