Archive for the ‘Communications’ Category

North Korea strengthens camera surveillance along the Chinese border

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

This is part of a very interesting trend, of surveillance in North Korea going more high-tech. Border security under Kim Jong-un has been a high priority, resulting in a significant drop in the number of defectors reaching South Korea. Recall, as the article does, that this is but one of several purchase rounds of surveillance equipment from China in recent years. It’s also part of a government drive to strengthen control overall – of economic and social trends and activities:

“The equipment was purchased from China in mid-May and cost approximately RMB 20 million [around USD 2,825,497],” a source based in China told Daily NK on Wednesday.

“The camera system will be set up in areas where smuggling activities are common – not across the entire border,” he continued, adding, “The installation of the system will begin in late June.”

Given that the cameras will only cover a limited area on the border, the high price tag suggests two possibilities: 1) the new system will film in higher definition than existing camera systems; or, 2) the system is so advanced that it can detect even the slightest of movements.

There is the possibility that the installation of the new system is part of preparations to resume trade between China and North Korea, namely by further cracking down on smuggling activities by individuals.

“The purchase of the new system shows that North Korea wants to stamp out these smuggling activities to ensure only [official] Sino-North Korean trade is allowed across the border,” the source speculated.

The source noted that North Korean officials believe that smuggling activities conducted by individuals are a key way information and illicit goods enter and exit the country.

(Source: Mun Dong Hui, “N. Korea to install new surveillance cameras on Sino-NK border,” Daily NK, 26 June, 2020.)

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Trends in the time of Corona: North Koreans increasingly gifting each other cell phone minutes

Thursday, June 11th, 2020

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Daily NK reports on an interesting trend:

North Koreans in Pyongyang are increasingly sending mobile phone minutes to others as gifts instead of attending birthdays or weddings as the country continues to restrict face-to-face meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With restrictions on movement, events and meetings due to the coronavirus, it is becoming commonplace for people to send others ‘mobile money’ as a celebratory gift,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on June 8.

“Mobile money” refers to a service where users can exchange minutes with other mobile phones users, essentially allowing people to “top-up” others who do not have enough minutes for voice calls.

“Students in Pyongyang who come from areas outside Pyongyang can’t return home due to the coronavirus and are unable to see their friends,” the source told Daily NK. “While confined in their dormitories, students began sending mobile money instead of gifts for various celebrations at home or their friends’ birthdays, and this practice is spreading to other areas of the country.”

AS SIMPLE AS CAN BE

Sending mobile money is relatively simple. Anyone with a mobile money card, which is akin to a checking card for mobile phone charges, can send minutes to others by entering the phone company’s three-digit ID number, the amount to be sent, the phone number of the recipient, and the six-digit password on the card.

For example, a subscriber of Koryolink, the most popular telecommunications provider in Pyongyang, can transmit mobile money to another individual by entering *999* followed by the amount of funds to be transferred, the phone number of the recipient, the six-digit phone money card password and then “#.” Kang Song NET customers would enter *929* instead of *999*.

(Source: Jang Seul Gi, “‘Mobile money’: an increasingly popular way of gifting to others,” Daily NK, June 11th, 2020.)

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North Korean state attempting to curtail ideological contamination of citizens abroad with TV box

Wednesday, June 10th, 2020

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

North Koreans living abroad are increasingly pressured to buy the Manbang IPTV boxes, to ensure that they can keep watching domestic TV and follow the riveting reports of Kim Jong-un’s guidance visits and other activities while abroad, Daily NK reports:

North Korean authorities are pressuring overseas residents of China to purchase a domestically-made IPTV set-top box as part of efforts to strengthen ideological education, Daily NK has learned.

“The North Korean embassy to China is selling IPTV set-top boxes to embassy staff and trade representatives at RMB 2,000 [around USD 282] per box. There is a lot of pressure to buy the boxes, which places a substantial burden on those who have recently been struggling to make ends meet,” a China-based source told Daily NK on June 8.

North Korea has been developing and selling a set-top box called “Manbang” since 2016. Manbang is capable of playing TV broadcasts in real-time along with videos-on-demand (VODs).

The state-run outlet DPRK Today described Manbang as an “IT platform” that allows businesses or households subscribed to North Korea’s intranet network to view various broadcasts real-time, as well as re-watch programs that have already aired.

The source pointed out that forcing North Korean citizens abroad to purchase the set-top box has more to do with strengthening ideological education than making money.

“The set-top box allows North Korean authorities to provide educational programs to North Koreans living in China, including embassy staff and traders,” the source told Daily NK. “[The reason the authorities are pressuring people to buy the devices] is because they think that there are declining levels of loyalty and ideological fervor among those living in China.”

The recent push to sell the devices may also be part of efforts by North Korean authorities to provide overseas residents with devices capable of broadcasting only North Korean programs. Many North Koreans living abroad reportedly watch foreign TV in secret.

North Korean authorities are also checking to see whether people living in China are watching the various ideological education programs provided by the state, according to the source.

“The leadership has instructed that criticism sessions should include discussions on whether people are using the set-top boxes,” the source told Daily NK, adding, “North Korean officials will even go as far as calling up individuals to ask about the broadcasts and make sure they are being watched.”

Manbang features reports on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s activities, as well as dramatized versions of Kim Il Sung’s memoirs. Videos relating to Kim family history are also available in the device’s VOD platform.

(Source: Mun Dong Hui, “N. Korean citizens in China pressured to buy IPTV set-top boxes,” Daily NK, June 10th, 2020.)

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North Korea spent two million dollars on surveillance equipment

Monday, December 3rd, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The spread of cell phones in North Korea, rather than being a catalyst for a Pyongyang Spring, is likely giving the regime more means and channels for surveillance. Daily NK reports:

The North Korean regime imported a large shipment of mobile phone wiretapping devices from China in May, local sources have reported.

“The authorities bought new electronic wave interruption devices and mobile phone wiretapping devices in May this year. The cost of the equipment was around 15 million yuan (2.45 billion South Korean won), according to a Ministry of State Security (MSS) official that I talked to,” a source in China close to North Korean affairs.

“The MSS official also told me that the equipment will be supplied to cities on the Sino-North Korean border, starting from Hyesan, Ryanggang Province, and then to Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province, and other cities. The cities are probably filled to the gills with high-quality electronic signal interruption and wiretapping devices now.”

Daily NK recently reported that North Korean law enforcement officials have installed new mobile phone wiretapping devices on the Sino-North Korean border to monitor international calls.

A number of residents calling relatives in South Korea have been arrested, and the MSS has demanded money from their family members in South Korea in return for their release.

The North Korean authorities have strengthened surveillance and wiretapping activities to prevent North Koreans who have access to outside information from sparking unrest in the country. These efforts have become particularly pronounced recently as inter-Korean relations have improved. Ultimately, the authorities want to prevent sensitive domestic information regarding denuclearization and nuclear development plans from leaving the country.

“For North Korean officials who depend on the regime staying in power, they know that the ‘information war’ with their own citizens and the international community is important and are set on preventing things from going in an undesirable direction,” one expert told Daily NK on condition of anonymity.

A separate source in Pyongyang also reported that MSS officials who misappropriated some of the funds used to buy the new equipment were purged.

“Several MSS officials were purged after it was found that they bought cheap equipment and embezzled the rest of the money. Another team of MSS officials had to go to China again to buy better equipment,” he said, adding that the officials who misappropriated the funds faced punishment after the equipment they bought did not operate as intended.

Article source:
North Korea spent $2M on surveillance and wiretapping equipment in May
Kim Song Il
Daily NK
2018-12-03

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The prospects for commercial, mobile banking in North Korea

Friday, August 3rd, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

A couple of days ago, Korea Times ran an interesting interview with Kim Young-hui of Korea Development Bank (KDB), on the prospects of commercial and mobile banking in North Korea. Kim was optimistic regarding the prospects for mobile banking to take off soon in North Korea:

“I think it could happen in the near future, within a year at most,” said Kim, Senior Research Fellow at KDB’s Korean Peninsula New Economy Center.

Kim’s forecast is based on the latest edition of the North Korean quarterly journal Economic Research, issued in June, which was about establishing a mobile banking system for smartphone users. The contents of the quarterly were reported by Yonhap.

“A commercial bank should be established first to enable customers to use mobile banking services,” she said. “Once it is established, individuals will be able to make transactions through their smart phones through their own bank accounts.”

In North Korea, the concept of individuals opening a bank account is alien.

Most of North Korean residents deposit their money with individual money traders, making it hard for the North Korean regime to account for the money it prints, Kim said.

Although North Korea established the Commercial Bank Law in 2006, it still does not have a separate commercial bank regulatory system. There are some “commercial” banks, but they only deal with foreign currency, not domestic currency, Kim said.

The Commercial Bank Law enables loan services for individuals, while working with domestic currency as well as foreign currency.

North Korea under Kim Jong-un is now trying to open up to the global economy as he declared in November that the completion of nuclear weapon development left him with one mission of economic development in his Byeongjin policy.

The new smartphone-based financial service would enable North Korean residents to check (their) bank accounts, withdraw cash, transfer money as well as pay at shops. The tool is a smartphone, an “indispensable information communication tools.”

The report also urged the mobile telecommunication organizations in the country to establish a communication infrastructure that can provide information on the purchase of goods while notifying financial transactions to mobile banking users. The infrastructure, once established, will also enable confirming of payments and settlements to both buyers and sellers.

“Unlike other countries where a series of steps have been taken before introducing mobile banking, North Korea is skipping them since smartphones are already prevalent in the country,” the researcher said.

The report also proposed the development and introduction of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies as well as the installation of necessary devices to make payment using smart phones at stores and other facilities more quick and accurate.

Full article and source:
‘North Korea will soon open commercial bank, mobile banking’
Jung Da-min
Korea Times
2018-08-01

A few thoughts on this:

First, on methodology, I’m not entirely convinced that one can or should read the North Korean journal that this assessment is based on, Kyungje Yungoo (경제연구) as a blueprint for what policies are in place or will come in the future. For years, and particularly under Kim Jong-un, the journal has run a multitude of articles on private incentives and profits within enterprises and firms, and on topics such as the role of various technologies within the economy, with no large-scale, public policy announcement following. To be sure, much has already changed in the economic realm within most spheres of what the journal covers, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between articles there and consistent, thorough changes in economic management. Rather, Kyungje Yungoo is perhaps best read as a map of what topics of conversation and debate (yes, debate) are acceptable in the academic and policy realms in the country. In other words, the regime is clearly thinking about commercial banking and ways to make it work, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily on the horizon in the immediate future (which it could well be).

Second, on the issue itself: North Korea’s financial sector is seriously underdeveloped. The lack of a solid banking system is a huge stumbling block for economic development, as assets that could otherwise be used to fuel growth through investments often sit idle. (For those interested in the issue, I wrote about it in this report for the Center for a New American Security a couple of months ago). Part of the problem is that even if the state did take initiatives to create some form of commercial banking sector, public trust in the state is deeply eroded. The government isn’t really an entity that most people want to hand their hard-earned savings to, because economic policy has historically been so erratic and often changes on a whim. Look, for example, at the market crackdowns of the past few months. Much is done by decree and order rather than by law. And the laws that do exist don’t really mean much if there’s no credible mechanism to enforce them. Should the government institutions simply allow for the institutionalization of private, commercial banking, rather than participate in the game themselves, that would be a different story, but the history of economic development in North Korea shows that that’s usually not how things work.

Third: it does make sense that there could be a lot of leap-frogging in sectors like banking in North Korea, given the increasing prevalence of smartphones and other technology. So there’s certainly room for optimism here too.

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The Koreas summit and the North Korean economy: why infrastructure is on the table

Sunday, April 29th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff 

It’s much to soon to expect concrete outcomes from all the summitry relating to the North Korean economy. Tentative signs suggest, however, that infrastructure will be on the table for the road ahead. A few of them:

  • Aside from a mention of promoting “balanced economic growth,” it’s really the only concrete measure within the economic sphere mention in the Panmunjom declaration: As a first step, the two sides agreed to adopt practical steps towards the connection and modernisation of the railways and roads on the eastern transportation corridor as well as between Seoul and Sinuiju for their utilisation. Sure, this is fairly vague too, but at least it’s something.
  • Kim mentioned infrastructure and railways during the summit, lamenting the comparatively poor state of North Korea’s transportation system:

During the talks, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un praised the quality of South Korea’s high-speed train system in Pyeongchang, while citing worries that if Moon were to visit the North, he would be inconvenienced since the transportation infrastructure there is much less advanced. “If (Moon) comes to the North after living in the South, it may be embarrassing. We will make preparations for a comfortable visit,” Kim said.

The South Korean president responded with hopes of restarting cooperation to build a railway connecting the South and North — which the two sides had agreed on during previous inter-Korean summits, yet never put to action.

“If the railroad is connected with the North, both the South and North can use high-speed trains. This is contained in the joint declarations of June 15 (2000), and Oct. 4 (2007), but it has not been executed over the past 10 years,” Moon said.

In other words, it’s already being talked about by the two leaders. It’s fairly uncontroversial and not politically touchy, at least not relatively speaking.

  • It’s not a coincidence that Putin mentioned infrastructure specifically during a phone call with Moon Jae-in about the summit. In theory, at least, it’s a potential win-win-win situation, both for North and South Korea and for other countries in the region, and therefore politically palatable. The idea of massive infrastructure projects as a way to facilitate trade, and peace, is certainly not new and has been part of the plan for inter-Korean economic exchange before, and the blueprints are too many to fully keep track of. Kim Jong-un will almost certainly be seeking support in this area, a crucial one for the second leg of Byungjin.

 

 

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Some Kwangmyong Intranet screen shots on KCTV

Monday, February 19th, 2018

According to KCTV evening news (2018-1-31) [via KCNA Watch], the North Korean intranet service, Kwangmyong,  is being managed by the Kwangmyong Information Technology Research Institute (광명정보기술연구원) under the Central Science and Technology Information Agency (중앙과학기술통보사). According to the broadcast, the network is being improved (faster and easier to use search engine and databases) to fulfill a growing need by North Korean youth and workers to have access to the latest technology.

The broadcast featured screenshots of some of the Intranet content. I am unsure if this content has been rolled out for use by the public, or if it remains under development.

Picture 1:

This screen shot is for a service called “Learning ‘Paduk'” (AKA “Go”).

Picture 2:

This screen shows various topical journals or books the institute publishes ranging from light industry to animal husbandry.

Picture 3:

This screen shows various sports that one can learn about through the search engine: Volleyball, table tennis, swimming, tennis, and badminton.

Picture 4:

The fourth screen is a ‘Women’s Health Handbook’.

Picture 5:

This fifth screen shows programs available such as Chinese-North Korean and English-North Korean translators.

Picture 6:

The sixth screen is an ad for North Korea’s Kindle

Picture 7:

This last screen shot is an extension of the sixth picture, showing the Kwangmyong Technical Encyclopedia, Biyak(multi-lingual dictionary), multi-lingual picture dictionary, and Kwangmyong Sports Encyclopedia

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New E-Commerce Website ‘Manmulsang’ Launched

Thursday, December 8th, 2016

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2016-12-7

A new shopping website, ‘Manmulsang’, has been launched in North Korea. The North Korean site, announced that there is “recently in our republic a new shopping website [e-commerce] offering a wide variety of commercial services through the state computer network and mobile telecoms network.”

According to the site, Manmulsang was developed by Yonpung Commercial Information Technology Company, and allows users to find information about domestically produced and imported products, as well as to read information about the economic activities of vendors registered on the website. Additionally, it has features including an ‘e-shop’, ‘economic information’, ‘upload product’, ‘announcements’, ‘my products’, ‘restaurant information’ and ‘food order’.

There are hundreds of products available in the ‘e-shop’, with the site saying “this site has new and special service features that distinguish it from sites that have existed before: it allows users to read domestic and foreign economic information – economic information services – and to order food via food order services.”

North Korea has demonstrated an interest in e-commerce since 2005. In an article entitled ‘The features of e-commerce and issues with its development’ published in Sahoegwahakwon hakbo [Social Science Studies Review] (Issue 2, 2005), the author, North Korean professor Ri Haeng Ho, says “With the rapid development of information technology, new phenomena are evident that were not previously visible in the economy”. In the article, Ri introduces the features, advantages and tasks related to e-commerce.

Ri also says that “beyond the development of e-commerce, commercial distribution is expanding into previously unimaginable areas. . . . Trade is expanding through the internet, and e-markets are being launched, providing information relevant to the market price of traded goods and thus facilitating trade.” Thus, Ri states e-transactions are characterized by the openness of commercial activity, the centrality of small, specialized retailers, and the emergence new specialist brokerage services.

Ri also argued that “the introduction of e-commerce will, with the aid of information technology, maximize effectiveness in commercial transactions, reduce production costs and raise profit. . . . E-commerce can cut waste and maximize cost reduction.”

As advantages he listed: (1) saving manpower and time through overcoming physical distance, standards and divisions; (2) reducing prices through using virtual shops; and (3) minimize unnecessary production and waste.

Ri goes on to emphasize that while company-company and company-individual transactions are highly active, there is a need to expand electronic payment systems, deal with tax payment issues, revise relevant laws, and establish computer security systems.

An article entitled “General Understanding of e-commerce” carried in Social Science Studies Review (Issue 3, 2005) also asserts that “In order to creatively apply the results of e-commerce transactions to our country’s specific trade conditions and circumstances, there is a need to deepen research into e-commerce transactions.”

At the same time, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) opened the Pyongyang Business School in July 2005, and the school has taught e-commerce, advertising and public relations management, new product development and marketing strategy, among other subjects, to North Korean government cadres, trade company personnel, and foreign trade research institution personnel, most of whom are in their forties and fifties.

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Naguib Sawiris is a US citizen!

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016

According to Finance Uncovered:

Naguib Sawiris is a multi-billionaire telecoms magnate. A truly global citizen, he was born a Coptic Christian in Egypt and educated in Europe. His business empire is controlled from a luxurious tower on the banks of the Nile, yet according to Companies House filings he is usually resident in the the UK, where amongst other things, he runs a hedge fund. As Sawiris confirmed during a recent case before the UK supreme court, he has US citizenship.

He is also deeply involved in global politics: a large donor to Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid, a power broker in his native Egypt and a regular visitor to Davos. When trouble flared in Cairo after the overthrow of President Morsi, he was the then special envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair’s first port of call. That port being in San Tropez.

Sawiris’s fortune derives from managing the telecoms empire of his family’s business Orascom. Orascom Telecom Holdings was a global telecom player particularly in the developing world.

The company held licences across the globe, from Zimbabwe, Syria, Iraq, Italy and North Korea. When the majority of Orascom Telecom Holdings was sold to Russian telecom giant, Vimplecom in 2011 for $6.6bn, Koryolink, the North Korean cell phone network, was one of the few assets Sawiris held onto.

The North Korean adventure
After building telecoms networks in a number of challenging countries around the world, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) must have seemed like the final frontier for Sawiris.

At some point before 2008 he was introduced to the opportunity by Ri Chol, who at the time was the North Korean permanent representative to the UN in Geneva. It has been suggested that in addition to his diplomatic duties, Chol was also responsible for managing Kim Jong Il’s private bank accounts in Europe.

In 2010 Ri Chol was recalled to North Korea to be vice chair of the DPRK’s committee of investment.

After the initial introduction, Sawiris visited the country several times to build relationships with the North Korean leadership. He has been photographed with Kim Jong Il. The vice premier of the DPRK cabinet was at Koryolink’s grand opening in Pyongyang.

“It’s personal you know, I went drinking with these guys at night, we made jokes, we get along well, and I’ve done nice stuff there,” Sawiris told Euromoney in 2011. “I’ve repaired their tramways, I’ve recovered their hotel, donated medicine when they had the floods.”

The hotel mentioned by Sawiris is Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel. When construction began in 1987, it was the first building outside the United States of over 100 stories. Originally intended to be a display of North Korea’s might, the giant windowless concrete pyramid became a national embarrassment for the best part of two decades after building stopped in 1992. It resumed in 2008 by Orascom and the exterior has now been finished, although reports from the country suggest it is still an empty shell. Documents from Orascom indicate that the company spent over $30m on the hotel.

A profitable enterprise
The effort Sawiris made to gain access to the North Korean market seems to be paying off. Koryolink is making a lot of money in North Korea. The 2014 annual accounts of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holdings (OTMT) show that the company made revenues in excess of $340m in its North Korea mobile phone (GSM) segment.

A Finance Uncovered analysis of Orascom Telecom’s 2012 annual accounts shows that the company’s two million North Korean subscribers – equivalent to 10% of the country’s population – made average revenue per user of $13 a month. These are huge revenues in a country where wages are very low. The best paid workers are said to be paid around $70 a month, according to recent reports. In 2013 average earnings were thought to be around $25-30 a month.

Recent news reports indicate that the company is having difficulty repatriating profits, and that the North Korean regime may have even appropriated the company. This is denied by OTMT.

How Koryolink manages to be so profitable is a mystery. Networks in other parts of OTMT’s former empire are far less lucrative. Djezzy, the phone network Sawiris set up in Algeria achieves an average revenue per user of $9 according to the 2012 annual report of Global Telecom Holdings despite Algeria having a GDP per capita more than four times North Korea’s. In Pakistan, Mobilink, another former Sawiris company with 36.1m subscribers generates $2.50 per user. In Bangladesh it is $1.70 per user.

Sawiris splits the substantial profits of the cell phone business with the North Korean regime, who also have a stake in the business. According to some analysts the North Korean Regime has earned between $400m-$600m from the cell phone industry up to early 2013.

Orabank
Cell phones are not Sawiris’s only business in North Korea. Buried in the list of subsidiaries in the Orascom Telecom and Media Holdings accounts is a reference to another enterprise, Orabank. This bank is not mentioned anywhere else in the annual report.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Orabank was opened the day after Koryolink in a ceremony in Pyongyang. An organisational chart filed with the SEC at the time of the Vimplecom merger in 2011 shows that Ora Bank NK is a subsidiary of Oracap Far East, of Malta.

With the huge difficulty faced by companies moving money into and out of North Korea, it is not unusual for a company operating in the country to set up their own bank. But these tend to be “hotel room operations” – nothing more than a telex machine in a hotel room.

Orascom’s accounts suggest that Orabank is a much more substantial enterprise. The first quarter report of 2009 from Orascom Telecom Holdings shows that Oracap Far East paid $1m for a licence to operate a bank, had $180,000 in cash and had committed to invest $127m.

The 2010 annual accounts of Orascom Telecom Holdings shows that the company wrote off $48m that it had invested in Orabank.

What exactly Orabank does is difficult to know. Other than these brief snapshots, there is no mention of Orabank’s revenues or business activities in Orascom annual reports.

Sensitive links
Sawiris’s various businesses in North Korea may raise some eyebrows in Washington DC. Not only is Sawiris a political mover and shaker, documents found by Finance Uncovered show that Koryolink and Orabank has a link to the US defence industry.

Sawiris’s North Korean businesses are owned by OTMT in Egypt. The majority of OTMT is owned by OTMTI in Luxembourg. According to a Federal Communications Commission application form submitted by another Sawiris company, Accelero Capital Investment Holdings, OTMTI is in turn is owned by companies based in the Cayman Islands. The eventual owner is the Marchmont Trust, a Jersey family trust. The trustee, who looks after the Trust’s assets is the February Private Trust Company, which is based in the UK Crown Dependency and tax haven, Jersey.

As of 2012, one of the five directors of the February Private Trust Company was Kevin Struve. At the same time, Struve was also a director of Contrack International, now Contrack Watts, a major US defence contractor and another Sawiris family owned business. As of last year, the latest data available at the Virginia SEC, Mr Struve is still listed as a director of Contrack.

We tried to contact Struve to ask him whether it is appropriate for the director of a US defence contractor to control businesses with high level links to the North Korean regime. Struve did not respond to our questions.

Sanctions
Sawiris’s dealings with the North Korean regime raise issues with regards to sanctions. Few people we spoke to, including senior US officials, appeared to know that Sawiris was a US citizen, and so subject to the US sanctions regime.

US sanctions prohibit any US citizens from dealing with a person or entity appearing on the sanctions list. A spokesperson for the US Treasury, although refusing to comment on this case, said that the prohibition is drawn purposefully broad in order to cover a variety of interactions.

According to official North Korean media reports, Orabank is a joint venture with the North Korean Foreign Trade Bank (FTB). The FTB was designated by the Secretary to the Treasury Jacob Lew in 2013 as “a key financial node in North Korea’s WMD apparatus”.

Sanctions only apply to designated entities after entities are placed on the sanctions list. If Sawiris and his companies stopped dealing with the Foreign Trade Bank after it was placed on the sanctions list, then it has complied with the law.

But Orascom Telecom and Media Technology Holdings (which Naguib Sawiris is the CEO of appears to openly acknowledge a risk that business may be harmed by “enhanced enforcement” of sanctions. Buried in the small print of the OTMT annual report is the following disclaimer (emphasis added):

“There can be no assurance that if international sanctions are changed or subject to enhanced enforcement, the Company’s operating subsidiary in DPRK will be able to finance its operations transfer funds to and from the company or operate its mobile phone network in DPRK.”

We put it to Sawiris that the disclaimer in his company’s annual report was akin to an admission that the company may be breaking sanctions in North Korea. We also asked whether he had ever dealt with people or companies on the US Department of Treasury Sanctions List. We were told by a spokesperson that Mr Sawiris does not comment on these issues as a matter of policy.

It is unclear if Sawiris or OTMT has broken US sanctions. But the facts we have uncovered do raise serious questions.

For several years Sawiris has been free to operate a bank in North Korea, a joint venture with a financial institution which later was considered by the US Treasury to be financing the country’s WMD programme. He has shared the profits of his burgeoning mobile phone business with the regime, and appears to have given tens of millions of dollars to their projects.

All this was done as other Sawiris family companies received hundreds of millions of dollars from the US Department of Defense.

As world leaders around the world consider how sanctions against North Korea should be toughened in the wake of their latest nuclear test, perhaps next time they are in Davos, they should ask their old friend Naguib.

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Orascom (OTMT) loses control of KoryoLink

Friday, November 20th, 2015

UPDATE 2 (2016-1-1): According to the Wall Street Journal:

Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris made billions of dollars from a global telecommunications empire that operated in authoritarian states from Zimbabwe to Pakistan. Now he is being dealt a potentially painful setback by one of the global economy’s biggest pariahs: North Korea.

Mr. Sawiris’s Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding SAE built a highly profitable mobile phone business with around 3 million customers in the isolated nation, as cellphones became popular with wealthier North Koreans and the state eased restrictions on communications. The business earned around $270 million before taxes and depreciation on $344 million in revenue in 2014.

But in the last few years, a state-run competitor emerged in North Korea, and Cairo-based Orascom hit problems trying to repatriate profits. Orascom said in a November filing in Egypt it had lost control of its 75%-owned North Korean venture, Koryolink, and struck the venture from its balance sheet, removing hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

Mr. Sawiris, chief executive officer of both Orascom and the North Korean venture, is now trying to negotiate a solution. “We are still hopeful that we will be able to resolve all pending issues to continue this successful journey,” he said in a statement accompanying the filing.

Orascom’s auditor, however, cited the “futility of negotiation” with North Korea over Koryolink’s assets, which the company said were worth $832 million at the end of June, including cash in North Korean won worth $653 million at the official exchange rate. Koryolink, which now accounts for 85% of Orascom’s revenue and profit, says it hasn’t been able to send any funds out of North Korea in 2015 due to local currency controls and international sanctions targeting Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Sawiris didn’t respond to requests for comment and Orascom declined to make him available for interview. A spokesman for Orascom reiterated the company’s public statements and didn’t respond to further questions. North Korea hasn’t referred to the dispute in its state media and relevant officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

How North Korea resolves the dispute could bear on its plans to cultivate foreign investment to develop the moribund economy. In recent years, Pyongyang has created more than 20 special economic zones for investors and announced local regulations intended to reassure foreigners.

In November, North Korea state media said foreign firms would be able to repatriate profits from one zone in the far northeast of the country “without restriction.”

The setback for Mr. Sawiris, 61 years old, underscores the risk of doing business in North Korea, where foreign firms have complained that property and profits have been appropriated by the government. In 2012, a Chinese mining company said North Korea arbitrarily took over its metal-processing facility in the country. Pyongyang in turn publicly accused the firm of failing to meet investment commitments.

Orascom says talks with the North Korean government to resolve its difficulties have included a possible merger with the rival carrier, Byol. However, North Korea has indicated it wouldn’t give Orascom management control of the combined entity and those talks have stalled, the Egyptian company said in November board minutes, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. As a result, “control over Koryolink’s activities was lost” according to accounting rules, the company said in its latest earnings report.

Few companies venture into North Korea. But for the outspoken Mr. Sawiris—who describes himself as a “freedom fighter” on his verified Twitter profile, and who has experience operating in difficult environments—a bet on the hermit kingdom made sense.

Since 1997, Orascom has built and run mobile networks in more than 20 countries across Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Its strategy: Load up on debt to build networks quickly in risky markets with little or no infrastructure, betting on rapid growth and strong returns, then sell when the market matures and more players materialize.

Orascom operated in many politically unstable nations such as Yemen and Bangladesh. In most cases, the gamble paid off. In 2003, Orascom paid $5 million for one of Iraq’s first mobile network licenses. Its local partner faced kidnappings of staff and attacks on property from insurgents, but in 2007 Orascom sold its Iraq operations for $1.2 billion to a Kuwaiti company.

There have been some setbacks. Orascom’s joint venture in Syria with a company run by a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad fell apart in 2002 when a Syrian court handed the Egyptian company’s share of the venture to the local partner.

In 2011, Mr. Sawiris sold most of his telecommunications assets to Russian mobile operator VimpelCom Ltd. in a deal worth $6 billion. Koryolink was one of the few assets he kept.

Orascom’s operations in North Korea began when the country awarded Koryolink the rights to operate its only mobile network from late 2008 through the end of 2012. North Korea had scrapped an earlier project in the country with a Thai firm in 2004, because of fears the network was vulnerable to spies.

Koryolink started with around 18 foreign staff based at a hotel in the capital city, according to Madani Hozaien, Koryolink’s chief financial officer from late 2008 to mid-2009. North Korea’s tight restrictions on travel made it difficult to manage network facilities and deals with local counterparts were hard to put together, he said.

“Once we had an agreement with one group, another team would appear and we’d have to start again,” he said.

Ihab Shafik, a human resources and administration manager for Koryolink from 2009 to 2012, said the company’s North Korean staff sometimes operated independently. “They built GSM [Global System for Mobile communications] towers without informing us and we discovered them later,” he said.

North Korean authorities gradually from 2008 allowed most members of the public to sign up for mobile service, although they can only make domestic calls and don’t have Internet access.

While mobile phones remain very expensive for most North Koreans, visitors to Pyongyang report that they’re a common sight. Defectors from the country say they have become increasingly important information tools for traders as North Korea’s unofficial market economy has grown in recent years. North Korea state media has even touted the country’s own smartphone, although it is generally considered a rebranded Chinese model.

Orascom’s problems in North Korea appear to have built during the final year of its exclusivity clause in 2012. Koryolink’s annual report for the year noted “restrictions on cash transfers from local currency” in explaining a $272 million cash balance held inside the country, that more than doubled to June 30.

The company’s board meeting to ratify first quarter results in 2015 was postponed by over a month “due to the delay of the negotiations with the North Korean side to solve the problems arising out of the transfer of dividends, the currency exchange rates and the operational problems that has recently emerged,” minutes from the meeting reviewed by the Journal said.

Orascom’s share price fell sharply on the Egyptian stock exchange after the company announced it was removing the North Korean operations from its consolidated earnings. The price has risen recently after Orascom announced plans to buy two financial companies, part of Mr. Sawiris’ effort to move away from telecommunications.

Experts on the North Korean economy say Orascom’s difficulty in repatriating funds is largely due to North Korea’s inability or reluctance to convert Koryolink’s cash to foreign currency from North Korean won at the official exchange rate. North Korea suffers constant shortages of foreign exchange and its own currency is worthless outside its borders.

In 2013, Orascom also was caught up in U.S. sanctions on North Korea, when a bank it had set up with a North Korean partner, which Koryolink uses for financial transactions, was barred from accessing the U.S. financial system.

Here is additional coverage in the Chosun Ilbo.

UPDATE 1 (2015-12-11): Orascom CEO claims to still control KoryoLink, but cannot obtain hard currency or get it out of the country.

ORIGINAL POST (2015-11-20): Martyn Williams broke the story here.

The first problem is that Orascom could not repatriate its profits:

Orascom’s efforts to get its profits out of North Korea have been unsuccessful, partially because of international sanctions imposed on the country but mainly by the government’s refusal to let the money go.

To transfer money out of North Korea, Orascom needs permission from the government and it hasn’t been granted, despite it being a partner in the joint venture.

The government hasn’t acted because it can’t afford to.

The profits are held in North Korean won, but the currency isn’t traded internationally and the government’s official rate is set artificially high, at 100 won to the U.S. dollar. At that rate, Orascon’s holding at the end of last year was worth $585 million.

But at the black market exchange rate, which is effectively the real value of the currency in North Korea, the cash is worth only $7.2 million. And therein lies the problem. The government can’t afford to pay the money at the official rate, and it can’t be seen to officially recognize the black market rate. So the two sides have spent months locked in talks about what to do.

Secondly, the DPRK government launched a second cell phone network to compete with KoryoLink, and efforts to merge the companies have been successful:

The issue came to light in an auditor’s report in June, and a month later Orascom dropped a bombshell: It said the North Korean government — supposedly its close partner — had set up a second carrier to compete with Koryolink.

With its options limited, Orascom entered merger talks to combine Koryolink with the new carrier. The North Korean government has agreed to the move in principle, but so far nothing has happened.

What’s more, the North Korean government has apparently proposed that it be the majority partner in any new venture that’s formed.

That led to a dramatic statement from Orascom when it reported its financial results Monday — “in the group management’s view, control over Koryolink’s activities was lost.”

Sawiris appears to hold out hope, but he might be out of moves.

“We are very proud of the success of our operation ‘Koryolink’,” he said in a statement. “We have around 3 million people today carrying our phones in the DPRK. We are still hopeful that we will be able to resolve all pending issues to continue this successful journey.”

Anna Fifield also followed up in the Washington Post and reported on the name of the new KoryoLink competitor:

This comes after Orascom discovered that North Korea was starting a competitor to Koryolink called Byol, and then began discussions about merging it with Koryolink, thus presumably extracting even more money from Orascom.

Byol (별) translates to English as “Star”.

Here is the OTMT financial report which explains the company’s position (PDF).

Here are screen shots of the relevant sections in the report:

OTMT-report-2015-11-associate

And

OTMT-report-2015-11-other-operator

OTMT-report-2015-11-other-operator2

A small correction needs to be added to the OTMT report, the Central Bank does not set the official exchange rate. That is set by the Foreign Trade Bank.

As Marcus Noland and I have pointed out, North Korea needs a big FDI win to inspire more large-scale foreign investment and modernize its investment regulatory framework, but debacles like this, Xiyang, and the KIC (referring here to the fact that it was too entangled in political risk to be a reliable investment without official subsidies and guarantees) reinforce the view that the DPRK is still too risky to become an attractive investment hub–and this excludes additional problems owing to the country’s weapons programs and human rights abuses.

 

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