North Korean Economy Watch

North Korea is promoting energy efficient light bulbs!

From UPI:

North Korean television has aired a program highlighting the benefits of energy-saving light bulbs.  Earlier this month, Korean Central Television showed a six-minute segment titled “Compact Light and Our Life” as part of the “Science and Technology Commonsense” program.

During the show, the announcer spoke of the benefits of energy-saving bulbs and told the audience that “compact light saves a lot more energy compared with normal white glow lamp or fluorescent lamp … compact lamps last longer than white glow lamps or fluorescent lamps.”

In interviews for the program, Yu Yong-hi, chief member of the Ministry of Power and Coal Industries, and Kim Kwang-il, of the Power and Remote Control Institute, spoke highly of the benefits of energy-saving bulbs, and explained how to use them most efficiently and safely.

A video still read: “Electricity saving, about 80 per cent compared with 100watt white glow lamp, about 50 per cent compared with 40W fluorescent lamp.”

Encouraging North Koreans to use energy-saving light bulbs, the program ended with a testimonial to the contribution made by energy-saving bulbs to the cultural lives of the North Korean people.

According to the Donga Ilbo, North Korea is assaying its real estate to establish its commercial value. 

Minju Chosun, published by the Cabinet of North Korea, reported on April 19 that the North Korean government is evaluating the real estate value across the country. The North’s official daily mentioned the on-going evaluation efforts in the editorial, emphasizing execution of this year’s budget set by the Supreme People`s Assembly during its fourth meeting on April 11.

“The government should actively engage in the evaluation process and contribute to generating the country’s financial resources,” the paper stressed.

Donga Ilbo reported on April 13 that North Korea is preparing for an economic reform centered on real estate reform, and that it intends to replenish national finances through real estate leases.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il purportedly ordered real estate reform earlier this year. A source said that the cabinet decision delivered on January 19 was related to Kim’s order on January 4 to lease real estate. Kim made a secret visit on January 10 to southern parts of China, a center of the country’s open and reform policies.

The source also said that the cabinet set the price of buildings and ports based on additional construction costs whereas it decide the price of natural real estate such as mountains and streams based on their use value.

The story of Mr. Shin Sang ok and is wife Choe Eun Hui is pretty incredible.

Here is the full story in Wikipedia.

Here is a clip of his Pulgasari

Here is his obituary in the Economist:

Mr Shin was a South Korean movie director. In 1978, Mr Kim, a movie buff, had him kidnapped and whisked to the hermit kingdom to make its revolutionary film industry less awful.

Before then, Mr Shin was best known for giving South Korean audiences their first on-screen kiss. During the 1950s and 1960s he made dozens of films, several of which depicted Korean women’s struggles against patriarchal convention. His favourite leading lady was his wife, the dazzling Choi Eun-Hee. In the 1970s Mr Shin’s career waned, and it came to an abrupt halt when he upset South Korea’s military government by complaining about censorship. His movie company was swiftly shut down.

Mr Kim, then the unacknowledged heir apparent to the world’s first hereditary communist monarchy, saw his opportunity. First, he had Ms Choi lured to Hong Kong, kidnapped and shipped to a North Korean port. Ever the gentleman, he turned up at the dock to greet her. “Thank you for coming, Madame Choi,” he said, as if she were stepping off a cruise ship.

Although they had recently divorced, Mr Shin was naturally alarmed at his ex-wife’s disappearance. He followed her trail to Hong Kong, where he too was abducted. In North Korea, he was put up in a comfortable guest house, but insisted on trying to escape. One day he borrowed a car, drove to a railway station, hid among crates of explosives and crept aboard a freight train. He was caught the next day, and soon found himself in a hellish prison camp.

Even there, however, he was protected from afar. When he tried to starve himself to death, officials force-fed him through a funnel. A guard told Mr Shin that he was the first attempted suicide he’d ever seen saved—so he must be very important.

After four years, Mr Shin won his release through a series of abjectly apologetic letters to Kim Jong Il and his father, President Kim Il Sung. He was brought to a dinner party in Pyongyang, the capital, and face-to-face with his ex-wife, who had not known until that moment that he was in North Korea. “Well, go ahead and hug each other. Why are you just standing there?” said the Dear Leader, who then suggested that they re-marry. They did as they were told.

At last, Mr Shin’s talents could be put to good use. Mr Kim was worried that films produced in decadent, capitalist South Korea were better than those produced in the North. Perceptively, he explained to Mr Shin that this was because North Korean film workers knew the state would feed them regardless of the quality of their output. In the South, by contrast, actors and directors had to sweat to make films the public would pay to see. Mr Kim wasn’t saying that there was anything wrong with socialism, of course, but he gave Mr Shin millions of dollars, a fancy marble-lined office and more artistic freedom than any North Korean director had ever enjoyed before.

Films fit for Cannes
Mr Kim did not want Mr Shin to make crude propaganda. Oh no. He wanted films that would win awards at international festivals. And although the tubby tyrant had previously argued, in his book “On the Art of Cinema”, that good movies should glorify the party, the system, his father and himself, he realised that this was not a fail-safe formula for wowing the judges at Cannes.

So he let Mr Shin shoot some watchable films, including “Pulgasari”, a Godzilla-inspired affair about a metal-eating monster who helped 14th-century peasants overthrow their feudal lords. The director and his wife were obliged to give a press conference explaining that they had willingly defected to North Korea, but otherwise they were treated far better than most of the Kim dynasty’s hapless subjects. Mr Kim must have thought that was good enough to keep them loyal, for he allowed them to travel. As soon as they saw a chance to dodge their bodyguards, during a promotional trip to Vienna in 1986, they fled to the American embassy and sought asylum.

Mr Shin was at first reluctant to go home, for fear that South Korea’s security police might disbelieve his fantastic tale and suspect him of communist sympathies. Fortunately, he and his wife had made, at mortal risk, clandestine tape recordings of conversations with Mr Kim. These, and the couple’s memoirs, are among the most useful accounts we have of the secretive (and now probably nuclear-armed) Dear Leader’s personality: charming, shrewd, quirky, malevolent.

Mr Shin continued to make films until shortly before he died. His last years were frail; he had a liver transplant in 2004. Ms Choi survived him, and his last film, about an old man with Alzheimer’s, is yet to be released.

From the Daily NK:

Computer Prices (Mar 14, 2006):
-17inch Pentium Ⅲ is US$110~120 retail ($90 wholesale price)
-A printer is US$65~70
-10 Floppy discs are 5,000W
-A keyboard is US$20
-A mouse is US$5

Snack prices (March 28, 2006)
-roast chicken is 6,500-8,000W
-roast duck is 9,000~12,000W
-750g of noodles are 2,400W
-box of Korean noodles is 6,750W
-1kg of potatoes is 400W
-1kg of Beans is 700W
-1kg of wheat flour is 750W (690W at wholesale price)
-400g of Milk is 5,000W
-1kg of Butter powder is 5,000W
-25g of Baking powder is 400W
-1kg of Chinese noodles of 2,000W
-1kg of dried cuttlefish is 8,800W.

Entertainment Costs (March 28, 2006)
-movie admission fee is 50W
-comic book is 1,500W, to borrow 100W
-Swimming pool is 70W
-bath admission fee is 2,500W
-5,000W ($1.67) /huor to use a Karaoke singing room
-1,000W ($0.33) /hour to use a computer in an internet café

Other Prices
–sanitary napkin is 500W, 600w, and 1,000w
-Skin lotions of three kinds are 42,000w
-Aloe cosmetics of three kinds are 42,000w
-A set of cosmetics (a skin cream and a skin lotion) is 10,000w (made in South Korea), 3,500w (made in China)
-Small gas cooking stove is 27,000w (made in South Korea / 25,000w in a wholesale price
-An electric bicycle is 150-200w.

North Korean inflation has increased following consecutively excessive issues of the 500W, 1,000W, and 5,000W notes.

Cities that can provide North Koreans with leisure facilities to enjoy are only Pyongyang, Shinuiju, Chongin, Hamhung, and Rasun. These cities possess big theaters, amusement parks, and swimming pools. Especially Shinuiju, which is close to China, has been introduced with foreign cultures and commodities very quickly. Shinuiju residents are also in the highest economic class of the North Koreans. Thus, Shinuiju has internet cafes, singing rooms, saunas, massage rooms, and comic bookstores.

The investigation was carried out by traders visiting Shinuiju in March and attaining the price levels concerned and then DailyNK gathered the information and cross-examined it.

Also, another trader emphasized that, “The official wage of North Korean workers is about 3,000 won. At the same time, the price for using a singing room per hour is 5,000 won. It shows how badly North Korea has been transformed,” adding that, “Shinuiju is the city where traders doing business with big money from North Korea and China gather. Such singing rooms, PC rooms, and saunas are just for them.”

Items marked by dollars in the price index below are usually paid in dollars, not North Korean won. A Chinese businessman who participated in the price investigation informed us that, “Currently in North Korea, the dollar is used frequently enough to be called ‘common currency’ and has more exchange value,” adding, “As trading costly articles, their paying in dollars makes them win credits.” He also said that, “That the dollar is exchanged into North Korea won is welcomed, yet to exchange the won into dollars is often impossible, even double the value.”

Now, in the early of April, the exchange rate of the dollar in North Korean black markets is roughly 3,000 won against the dollar.

The Tongil (Reunification) Market is the most famous in the west.  It made a cameo appearance in the wonderful documentary A State of Mind, and is fairly easy to spot on google earth.

Here are its origins (innacuracies listed at bottom), according to the Nautilus Institute:

Following DPRK leader Kim Jong Il’s instruction in March 2003, which allowed for the transformation of farmers’ markets into consolidated markets, the Unification Market opened as the largest market in Pyongyang on September 1st of the same year. With 1,500 booths spanning over 6000 sq. meters, the market is divided into three zones — agriculture produce and fish products, food and clothing, and metal utensils and appliances — with each zone housing a management office, money changer, and a food court, which offer a variety of conveniences to the customer.

What kinds of goods can be found for sale in Pyongyang? Towards the end of last February, one Chinese reporter introduced us to merchants selling luxurious Chinese clothing and flower-pattern dresses at the ‘Unification Market’, North Korea’s representative market located near Pyongyang’s Rakrangku Station.

These days, the Unification Market is jam-packed with people looking for quality designer clothes and shoes, which are mostly made and brought in from China. Also abundant are the peddlers: mainly North Korean women in their forties who (to this reporter) were not distinguishable from the average middle-aged Chinese woman. Despite being a whirlwind of activity, these colorfully dressed women — white hats, pink clothes, and floral-print aprons — still managed to radiate grace.

According to the reporter, “Through recent investments by Chinese retailers, China is introducing modern fashion lines, designs, and dyeing technology, and this is having a huge effect on the clothing worn by North Koreans as well. These days, North Korean clothes are reflecting current fashion trends.”

A look around the market revealed that although vegetables were 20 percent more expensive than in China, seafood and clothing was 20 percent cheaper. Take into account, however, that the average monthly income of a North Korean farmer is 3,000 – 10,000 DPRK won (approx. 20 – 70 USD), and goods in the Unification Market are not particularly cheap. Be that as it may, after observing not just a few people coming and going with goods in hand and full shopping baskets, it was surmised that “the lives of ordinary North Korean citizens” — or at least those residing in Pyongyang — “are definitely improving.”

As economic recovery continues, the demand for electrical appliances seems to be growing among ordinary households. The very first Chinese appliance to enter the North Korean market, the Sinbi refrigerator, now occupies 40 percent of the market share, and can be easily found even in government facilities.

Innacuracies:

The North Korean Won trades officially at about 100W to US$1.  In the Tongil Market and in markets throughout the country the exchange rate is closer to 3,000W/US$1. 

Additions:

The DPRK does not allow people to take pictures of the market.  I am not sure why.  There are plenty of official photos on line.  Prices are freely bargained and transactions are conducted in Won.  Venders pay a flat fee to set up shop in the market.  They sell chinese knock-offs of fancy western colognes inside.  Car Parking is not free…30W.  The bike shed is.

Obviously this Chinese citizen knows more about fn in the DPRK than I do, but he lists it all out.  If you are in Pyongyang, beg your giude.  Maybe you will get to hang out in some of these places.

His web page

From the prolofic Andrei Lankov:

Koreans love eating out _ as every long-time Seoul resident knows from his or her own experience. Going to a restaurant is one of the most common leisure activities in this country. In this regard the North is not much different. Of course, decent restaurants are much more difficult to come across: Communist economies have never been particularly successful in meeting consumers’ demands in this area. Nonetheless, this does not mean North Korean cities do not have good restaurants. Perhaps, the very scarcity of such places, combined with the generally bad diet, make eating out there an even more remarkable experience.

For the last 25 years two major restaurants have defined the Pyongyang’s culinary life ㅡ Okryugwan and Chongryugwan.

Okryugwan (the Jade Stream Pavilion) is located on the left bank of the Taedong River. It commenced operations in 1960, and has since remained the major landmark of the North Korean capital. This large building, in a mock traditional style, boasts a number of dining halls including some special banquet rooms, and can seat up to 2,000 visitors. Obviously, the penchant for large-scale eateries has been common to all Communist regimes (the Soviet restaurants of the era also tended to be of truly mammoth size).

Okryugwan has an officially recognized standing as the major guardian of traditional Korean cuisine, functioning as a type of living museum of culinary arts. Recently it was reported that, together with a local college, it sent special research teams to the countryside. The teams were to gather data on traditional Korean cuisine in order to introduce new dishes onto the Okryugwan menu (I just wonder whether it was a good idea to look for new recipes at the time of famine).

Chongryugwan (the Pure Stream Pavilion) is almost equally famous. It opened much later, 1980, in a new building shaped to resemble a ship. The Chongryugwan sits on the banks of the Potonggang, a minor but capricious tributary of the Taedong River. It has two levels: the ground floor, occupied by a large dining hall, and the upper floor, used for small dining rooms and banquet halls.

Both restaurants specialize in traditional cuisine, with special attention given to cold noodles, a quintessentially North Korean dish. Generally, the cooking traditions in the North and South are slightly different, but South Korean visitors usually have a high opinion of the food in both of these famous restaurants.

Both Okryugwan and Chongryugwan are sometimes described in the South as ‘mass restaurants’, and this description is true. Open to the average North Korean, they are not reserved for bigwigs or dollar-paying foreigners alone. However, this does not mean anyone can wander in off the street and enjoy a bowl of cold noodles at whim. In order to get access, North Koreans initially had to get tickets, and these tickets were notoriously difficult to acquire. One had to have connections or endure hours in long queues. Only in recent years has the ongoing “dollarization’’ of the North Korean economy changed the situation: if one has money then tickets are available (that’s a big ‘if’ of course).

In the countryside there are local analogues to the two Pyongyang heavyweights. Each major North Korean city has its own `special’ restaurant. Usually, their names include the characters ‘kak’ or ‘gwan’. Both words are of Chinese origin: they can be roughly translated as ‘pavilion’ and ‘hall’ and have been a part of the names of the restaurants in East Asian countries for many centuries

Apart from Okryugwan and its less successful rivals, North Korea has a number of smaller eateries. They are not as numerous as eateries in the South, but in major cities they are not so difficult to find. In the past there used to be a clear-cut difference between the hard-currency restaurants, which were off limits to commoners, and establishments for the not-so-well-heeled. However, the recent few years have seen a gradual blurring of this once impassable border.

North Korean specialities are noodles and, of course, dog meat. Incidentally, the latter is not called ‘dog meat’ (kae kogi) in North Korea. Once upon a time, Kim Il Sung decided that such a name was too unceremonious, and had it renamed ‘sweet meat (‘tan kogi’)!

The restaurant industry was one of the first in which private enterprise was reintroduced. This happened at a surprisingly early stage, in the late 1980s, when state control of the economy was still sound. In recent years, these private eateries have sprung up in very large numbers, reflecting the steady disintegration of the Stalinist economy.

According to a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan, in 2005 there were 500 restaurants in Pyongyang. Most of them charge prices well beyond the reach of the average North Korean, and cater to the tastes of the three major groups with money: foreign ex-pats, black-market dealers, and officials. These groups are large enough to sustain a number of quite sophisticated eateries.

There is sashimi to be eaten in the Galaxy, there is ostrich barbecue at the Arirang, and there is a micro-brewery where 5 people can feast on the locally produced dark ale and good noodles for a mere $15! A bargain, of course, at $3 per person ㅡ but, after all, the $3 is exactly how much the average North Korean worker is paid for one month… Some people have this money, of course. How? That is another story…

This new book could be interesting: Art Under Control In North Korea

Jane Portal’s book is the first to be published in the West which explores the role of art in North Korea, a role that has been based on pronouncements made by the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung and his son the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, about what the State expected of its artists. Portal makes comparisons with those of other, similar, regimes in the past, and finds a clear connection between North Korean art and the socialist realism of the Soviet Union and China. She places North Korean art in its historical, political and social context, and discusses the system of producing, employing, promoting and honouring artists. Painting, calligraphy, poster art, monumental sculpture, architecture and applied arts are included, together with a review of the way in which archaeology has been used and even created for political ends, to justify the present regime and legitimize its lineage. Jane Portal thus reveals much about art made under totalitarian rule, as well as how the art subverts the regime.

Here are two sites that have good examples of the DPRKs socialist-realism paintings:

http://www.northkoreapropaganda.com/

http://northkorea-art.com/ (Pyongyang Art Studio run by out friends at Koryo Tours)

According to Andrei Lankov in the Korea Times:

The North boasts a huge public bathing facility, one that probably exceeds in size any comparable enterprise in the South, and one that is not much inferior in service quality. This is Changgwangwon, a mammoth bathing complex that opened to the public in March 1980. In 2001 North Korean media reported that during the first two decades of its existence Changgwangwon was visited by some 37 million people.

Changgwangwon can be described as a ‘super-bathhouse’. This granite and marble structure is replete with swimming pool, an impressive array of spas and showers, saunas, and the like. It has its own bars and tearooms. And it is open to the general public.

However, not everybody can just walk in: one has to have a ticket, and the ticket is only valid for a limited time. Actually, the Changgwangwon complex serves some 5,000 patrons a day, but it is not enough to satiate the wishes of the capital residents: many more people would like to get in. Thus people wait in the early morning, from 4:00 AM, in a long queue. Foreigners are luckier: they have a designated day (Saturdays) when the entire complex is reserved for their exclusive use ㅡ much to the dismay of the common people. However, foreigners pay hard currency for the privilege

In the 1980s a handful of other top-class bathing houses were built in Pyongyang. These are moderate if compared to Changgwangon, but quite impressive by the standards of the ‘normal’ North Korean public bathhouses. However, a visit to Changgwangwon is a rare event, even for the inhabitants of privileged Pyongyang; it is the humble public bathhouse that is for daily use.

And what about private bathing facilities? These are nearly absent. Rare is the dwelling in the countryside that has any bathing facilities at all. This is often the case even with the multi-story buildings, especially outside Pyongyang: a tap in the kitchen is the best that one may hope for. Only a minority of North Koreans can wash themselves in their own apartment building, but even then it is seldom done in a private bathroom. The better apartment complexes have small bathhouses for the exclusive use of the residents. Sometimes there is a shower room on every floor, and sometimes a bathhouse is located on the ground floor of a building. Only in a handful of the best apartments in Pyongyang is every flat equipped with its own bathroom.