North Korean Economy Watch

According to the New York Times:

At the Red Sun restaurant, a short-order joint on Crab and Beer Streets, live crabs with plump legs wriggle in a cooled tank, fresh from the North Korean coast just two and a half hours away by road.

The cook and owner, Jin Yuansheng, douses the prized crabs in boiling water and adds them to the steaming platters of sea cucumbers, shrimp and squid, also from North Korean waters, that he brings to the table.

This border town in China’s cold and poor northeast abuts North Korea along the icy Tumen River, where a bridge serves as the gateway for a lively commerce in shellfish plumbed from the Sea of Japan off North Korea. It is an exotic niche business in the more than $11 billion annual trade between North Korea and China, which is dominated by China’s purchases of cheap North Korean iron ore and coal.

…

By encouraging trade with North Korea, China aims to prevent North Korea’s government from collapsing, an outcome that could result in a Korean Peninsula allied to the United States. And business with North Korea serves a domestic goal: it helps employment and incomes in needy Jilin Province, where an estimated two million ethnic Koreans live.

That is where the crabs come in. Scooped from 3,000-foot-deep waters by trawlers crewed by North Korea workers, they are first taken to the North Korean port of Rason, a special enterprise zone serving foreign investors and largely financed by China. The crabs are trucked in ice to the Chinese border town of Quanhe, and then brought to the market in Yanji, or flown to cities across China as a delicacy for the affluent.

“Getting the crabs here is a delicate operation,” said Mr. Jin. “If they are too hot en route, they can die, and if they are too cold, they can freeze to death.”

…

For Chinese traders, importing crab is a lucrative business. They sell not only to upscale restaurants around China, but also to banquet organizers. The sales pitch stresses what is called the purity of the waters around impoverished North Korea compared with the more polluted seas around industrialized Japan and South Korea.

“The fishermen capture the crab deep down, so it is high quality,” said Qu Baojie, whose company imports crab from Rason. “South Korea and Japan can’t compete.”

His crab, branded as Crab Earth, Crab Heaven, is featured at the buffet of the Golden Jaguar, a fashionable Beijing restaurant, and is sold in red boxes suitable for business gifts, he said.

The fishing operations in Rason, an ice-free port that gives year-round sea access to China’s northeastern provinces, work fairly smoothly, Mr. Qu said. Fishing trawlers equipped with South Korean gear ply the waters at night, returning to shore about 4 a.m.

Their catches are then transferred to a state-owned plant where some crabs are packed live and others are processed, he said. About 300 North Korean workers are employed during the peak September to December fishing season. Fishing during the breeding season of June to September is banned, he said.

His crab business flourishing, he recently bought a new processing factory in Yanji, Mr. Qu said.

Some of the crab meat was vacuum packed in clear plastic, and sold to other Chinese traders, who in turn dispatched it to the United States, he said. The brand name of North Korean crab meat sold in the United States? “They slap on their own brands,” he said of the American buyers.

Read the full story here:
Caught in North Korea, Sold in China, Crabs Knit Two Economies
New York Times
Jane Perlez
2013-3-4

According to Yonhap:

North Korea’s grain and fertilizer imports from China nosedived in January, Seoul’s Korea Rural Economic Institute said Sunday, citing data from the Korea International Trade Association.

North Korea imported 2,174 tons of grain and 2 tons of fertilizer from China in the first month of this year, the institute said. By product, flour imports totaled 1,172 tons and corn imports reached 540 tons.

The volume of imported grain marked a mere 9.2 percent of the North’s imports of Chinese grain in the previous month, while the corresponding figure for fertilizer amounted to 20 percent, the institute said.

Compared with the same month of last year, the figures reached 25.9 percent and 0.03 percent, respectively.

“The steep decline in the North’s grain imports from China is very unusual, even considering the past trend of grain imports decreasing every January,” said Kwon Tae-jin, a researcher at the institute.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea’s grain imports from China plunge in Jan.
Yonhap
2013-3-3

According to Reuters:

While Beijing has not made clear whether the test would disrupt its investment plans for the Rason economic zone, an official at the zone’s joint management office told Reuters that all previously announced Chinese projects for the zone remain on track, including a power line from China to ease acute electricity shortages there.

“All the people of the management office are still here working as usual… If there is any major impact (from the nuclear test), do you think we would still be here?” he said by phone from Rason, which lies near where North Korea, China and Russia converge. “All works are proceeding as planned.”

There are about 60 Chinese and North Korean people working at the management office, and the number may grow with the launch of more projects, said the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

China and North Korea jointly set up the Rason management committee in October to handle the planning, construction and development of the zone, also known as Ranjin-Songbong, one of the country’s highest profile economic projects.

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“China has normal relations with North Korea. We will conduct normal trade and economic exchanges with North Korea,” Hua Chunying, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, said when asked whether China would continue to work with North Korea to develop its special economic zones after the nuclear test.

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Led by China’s commerce ministry, Chinese firms, including State Grid Corp, Jilin Yatai (Group) and China Railway Construction Group and other state enterprises, have indicated interest in investing in power, building materials, transport and agriculture projects in the zone.

Yatai, a Shanghai-listed cement and coal producer, signed a framework agreement last year with the North Korean government to construct a 500,000-square-metre building materials industrial park, including a cement plant, in Rason.

State Grid finished the final review of the feasibility study of the 97.8-kilometre power line early this year, but has not started construction as it has not yet won all approvals, the official and a source close to the plan said.

The planned line would cut through a Siberian tiger natural reserve, and State Grid is awaiting a green light from China’s National Development and Reform Commission and coordinating with various other authorities, the source told Reuters.

There is no timetable for the project as State Grid is unsure when it would receive government approvals, he added. State Grid was not immediately available for comment.

Jilin Yatai may delay its cement project in Rason — which is critical to the construction of other projects such as the railway there — due to “issues on the North Korean side,” said an official at Yatai’s securities office.

But the likely delay of the project was not related to the nuclear test, the official said by phone from Changchun, capital city of Northeast China’s Jilin province, which borders North Korea. He declined further comment.

In a filing with the Shanghai bourse in August, Yatai said it planned to complete the construction of its first cement plant in North Korea by September this year only if there is sufficient power capacity available.

Read the full story here:
China moves ahead with North Korea trade zone despite nuclear test
Reuters
2013-2-28

According to Yonhap:

China is expected to start supplying electricity to North Korea’s special economic zone in June as part of their joint development efforts there, a news report said Tuesday.

China-based Yangbian Internet Radio said the Chinese city of Hunchun, which is close to the border with the North, will make efforts to establish joint economic projects, including the electricity supply plan.

The news outlet said preparations for the plan to supply electricity to the Rason Special Economic Zone, located in the northern tip of North Korea, will be complete in June. The Chinese city also plans to build a bridge and road.

Since last year, Chinese media outlets have said the supply plan marks the first case of China’s state-run electricity agency providing electricity to a foreign nation and aims to help build up infrastructure in the North Korean special zone.

Experts said China may continue its economic cooperation projects in the North’s east coast region as they are part of the country’s efforts to secure a commercial stronghold in the East Sea despite rising tension over the North’s Dec. 12 nuclear test.

Read the full story here:
China to start electricity supply to Rason economic zone in N. Korea
Yonhap
2013-2-19

Pictured Above: New hotel under construction. See more here. I am still not sure about the gold mine.

By Michael Rank

A Chinese company has announced plans to invest $20 million in a gold mine in North Korea as well as in the country’s first five-star hotel, a Chinese-language website reports.

The mine, with deposits of 50 tonnes of gold, is in Unsan county 운산군 in North Phyongan province 평안북도 in northwestern North Korea near the Chinese border.

The report said Weijin Investment Group is the first Chinese company from Hunan province to invest in North Korea.

It quoted Weijin chairman Xia Juhua as saying, “North Korea is backward in infrastructure construction, so we can fulfill the requirements of mineral resources exploitation by offering technology and management support to the country’s key projects like highways and hotels”.

He said Wejin plans to construct a 30-storey, five-star hotel to be completed this year but did not give a location. Xia also mentioned plans to invest in the rare earth sector in North Korea but gave no details.

The report said about 200 Chinese companies were investing in North Korea and that over 70% were focusing on the mining sector. But at least one of these ventures went spectacularly sour last year, when the Chinese partner launched an extraordinarily bitter attack on its North Korean counterpart, accusing the North Koreans of tearing up a multi-million-dollar deal, intimidating its staff, imposing outrageous extra charges and cutting off its power and water, as well as of corruption and demanding prostitutes whenever their North Korean colleagues visited China.

UPDATE (2013-3-13): NK News has published that the hotel will be named “Yonggwang Hotel (영광호텔)”…which is the name of the closest metro stop.

According to Radio Free Asia:

Businessmen in China told RFA’s Korean Service that until recently, the North’s leadership had largely kept to its rule of allowing trade officials to work abroad only once during their tenure as part of an effort to limit exposure to the outside world.

“The [practice of] ‘revolving door personnel allocation’ is prevalent in North Korea,” said one merchant surnamed Li from the city of Dandong in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, which is located on the border between the two countries.

But he said that an increasing number of North Koreans who had just recently returned from assignments in China were being sent to the neighboring country again in an official capacity.

“A North Korean trade representative who had worked in Dandong five years ago returned [to China] as a representative working in Beijing, which was surprising,” Li said, adding that he had never encountered a North Korean official who had served in the country on more than one occasion.

Another Chinese merchant surnamed Wang, who is currently living in North Korea, confirmed that more officials were being sent to China multiple times.

“Recently there are an increasing number of North Korean representatives who have repeatedly been dispatched abroad, although they are working in regions different from those where they had previously been posted,” Wang said.

One source suggested that Pyongyang may be continuing to rely on officials who have already served abroad in order to leverage their existing experience dealing with China’s trade sector.

He said that when the North Korean government requires an urgent trade agreement, it has become more willing to use officials with experience because training new personnel would be too time-intensive.

But another source said that the prompt resolution of trade negotiations is not the regime’s driving motive behind redeploying officials abroad.

“It’s not because the North Korean government needs an urgent resolution to trade matters, but simply because the officials who have previously worked abroad are lobbying so hard to be re-dispatched,” the source said.

Read the full story here:
North Korea Redeploying Officials
Radio Free Asia
Joon Ho Kim
2013-1-30

UPDATE 1 (2013-1-18): According to the Daily NK:

The number of North Koreans visiting China legally reached a record high of 180,600 in 2012, an 18% increase over the 2011 figure of 152,300.

Radio Free Asia released the news today, citing Chinese statistics. According to the report, the most common reason for the visits was ‘employment’ (79,600, 44%) followed by ‘business’ (55,200, 31%).

The number visiting China for ‘business’ increased by roughly 10,900 over the 2011 figure, while the number of those visiting for ‘employment’ increased by 4,300.

According to RFA, “This is because of the greater number of exchanges and joint ventures going on between North Korea and China in the economic sector.”

…

Elsewhere in the statistics, 4,500 (2.5%) North Koreans also visited China last year for purposes of tourism and leisure, and 200 (0.1%) went to visit friends and relatives.

Read the full story here:
Legal North Korean Visitor Numbers Rise
Daily NK
Jeong Dae Sung
2013-1-18

ORIGINAL POST (2012-4-24): Number of visitors up in first quarter of 2012. According to Yonhap (via Korea Times):

The number of North Koreans visiting China in the first three months of the year surged more than 40 percent from a year ago, with the majority arriving for employment or business purposes, a report said Tuesday.

A total of 40,200 North Koreans visited the neighboring country in the first quarter, up 40.5 percent on-year, according to the Voice of America, which quoted data from the China National Tourism Administration.

About half, or 19,300 visitors, were seeking work in China’s manufacturing and dining industries, while another 10,800 visitors arrived for business purposes, the report said. Only 1,100 North Koreans toured China for sightseeing.

By age group, 19,100 visitors were aged between 45 and 64, followed by 17,200 people who were aged between 25 and 44.

Ferries transported the highest number of passengers at 17,400, while 9,300 people traveled by automobile.

The number of male visitors came to 33,200, or 83 percent of the total, far exceeding the number of females.

The data did not include defectors or other North Korean visitors who arrived by unofficial means, the report said.

See a report of North Korean visitors to China in 2011 here.

Read the full story here:
NK visitors to China swell in first quarter
Yonhap (via Korea Times)
2012-4-24

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2013-1-17

China’s Ministry of Commerce reportedly sent about 70 specialists to North Korea to provide “joint consulting” services for Rajin and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands joint special economic zones (SEZs).

According to Yonhap News, about 70 specialists from the Department of Commerce of Jilin Province were dispatched to North Korea a few months ago to work on the China-DPRK joint venture projects. Their main focus is to discuss the management and legal systems of the SEZs, promotion of foreign investment, and share over 30 years of China’s experience on opening and reform.

The Department of Commerce of Jilin Province is directly under the Commerce Ministry. Chinese officials are going between Rajin, Sinuiju (near Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands), and Pyongyang areas to negotiate on specific management measures concerning the SEZs.

Since Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC) Jang Song Thaek visited China in August 2012, the two countries have reached an agreement and established joint management committee in Rason and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands. Since then, briefing sessions have been hosted in major Chinese cities to promote investment in North Korea.

Many speculated that joint management committees would be established in both zones.

A recent article in North Korea’s economic journal Kyongje Yongu (October 30, 2012), outlined general types of SEZ management: management-led, public enterprise management, cooperative management, joint venture, and contract-based management committees. Government-led management committee was referred to as the most common form.

Currently, the Kaesong Industrial Complex is jointly operated by North and South Korea by a management committee. However, one drawback to this system is that the high government involvement places enormous constraints on the activities of investing companies.

China, on the other hand, is trying to reduce North Korea’s intervention in the management process of the SEZs. China is also shying away from adopting a management committee-led form of management.

Meanwhile, the seventh meeting of the DPRK-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee on Economics, Trade, and Science and Technology was held in Pyongyang on January 9, where an agreement on economic and technology cooperation was signed. At a subsequent ceremony, the two sides also signed an agreement for the construction of administrative office buildings in the Rason and Hwanggumpyong SEZs.

The DPRK-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee on Economics, Trade, and Science and Technology began in March 2005 and has held one to two meetings each year to promote bilateral economic cooperation.

According to Bloomberg:

North Korea’s trade with China expanded more than 60 percent to $5.63 billion in 2011 […]

Commerce with China accounted for 70.1 percent of the North’s total $8 billion trade in 2011, up from 57 percent in the previous year, South Korea’s national statistics office, Statistics Korea, said in its annual report today in Seoul. North Korea does not report economic data. Inter-Korean trade amounted to about $1.71 billion in the same year.

…

Excluding a dip in 2009, trade between the two countries has increased every year since the start of 2000, when the statistics bureau started releasing estimates. Data for 2012 will be released around the end of next year.

North Korea’s economy expanded 0.8 percent in 2011 and gross national income per capita was 1.33 million won ($1,239), nearly one nineteenth that of South Korea’s 25 million won, according to the Bank of Korea. South Korea’s total nominal gross national income was 38.2 times that of the North’s 32.44 trillion won.

The regime imported 3.8 million barrels of crude oil for 2011. Power generation capacity was 6.9 million kilowatts, less than one-10th that of South Korea. Steel production was 1.23 million tons and production of chemical fertilizer production was 471,000 tons.

North Korea’s population rose to 24.3 million in 2011 from 24.2 million the previous year — about half of South Korea’s. Population estimates were based on North Korea’s 1993 and 2008 censuses.

The Los Angeles Times also reported on these findings.

Here is coverage in Business Insider.

The Statistics Korea page for North Korea can be found here.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea’s 2011 China Trade Grew More Than 60 Percent
Bloomberg
Sangwon Yoon
2013-1-2

The Nautilus Institute has put together an amazing research paper on the DPRK’s energy sector. I cannot understate the value of the quality/quantity of facts/figures/tables in this research.

You can download the PDF here.

I have also added it to my DPRK Economic statistics Page.

Here is the introduction:

Energy demand and supply in general—and, arguably, demand for and supply of electricity in particular—have played a key role in many high-profile issues involving North Korea, and have played and will play a central role in the resolution of the ongoing confrontation between North Korea and much of the international community over the North’s nuclear weapons program. Energy sector issues will continue to be a key to the resolution of the crisis, as underscored by the formation of a Working Group under the Six-Party Talks that was (and nominally, still is) devoted to the issue of energy and economic assistance to the DPRK.

The purpose of this report is to provide policy-makers and other interested parties with an overview of the demand for and supply of the various forms of energy used in the DPRK in six years during the last two decades:

• 1990, the year before much of the DPRK’s economic and technical support from the Soviet Union was withdrawn;
• 1996, thought by some to be one of the most meager years of the difficult economic 1990s in the DPRK; and 2000, a year that has been perceived by some observers as a period of modest economic “recovery” in the DPRK, as well as a marker of the period before the start, in late 2002, of a period of renewed political conflict between the DPRK, the United States, and it neighbors in Northeast Asia over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons development program; and
• 2005, also a year in which observers have again noted an upward trend in some aspects of the DPRK economy, as well as the most recent year for which any published estimates on the DPRK’s energy sector and economy are available.
• 2008, the last year in which the DPRK received heavy fuel oil from its negotiating partners in the Six-Party talks; and
• 2009, the most recent year for which we have analyzed the DPRK’s energy sector.