North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE:  The Daily NK offers some more information:

North Korea has leased the rights to use Chongjin port to a Chinese firm, according to a Yonhap report released yesterday.

The report, citing an anonymous government official from Tumen in China’s far northeast, across the Tumen River from Namyang in North Hamkyung Province, said that the usage rights have been sold to a “Chinese state company, Yanbian Haihua Import-Export Trade Company.”

He predicted, “Yanbian Haihua Import-Export Trade Company will start shipping between Chongjin port and Busan by container ship in September, and will start shipments to southern regions of China soon.”

The anonymous official also revealed that North Korea has agreed to allow the Chinese company to use the railroad between Tumen and Chongjin as part of the deal. The deal, the official said, will “facilitate trade from Tumen,” and added that the Chinese company which inked it is planning to use it to fulfill shipping contracts with three other Chinese companies.

The Chinese company is reportedly investing 10 million Yuan ($1.48 million approx.) in shipping cranes and other construction at Chongjin, and is having 150 freight cars produced to add to 50 already sent.

The deal follows a similar one for the No. 1 dock at Rasun port, some 70km north of Chongjin. That deal, made after the visit to Pyongyang of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in October last year, gave the rights to the dock to another Chinese company, Chuangli Group.

ORIGINAL POST: According to Yonhap:

China has acquired the rights to use another one of North Korea’s northeastern ports, signaling deepening economic ties between the ideological allies, a Chinese official said Thursday.

China has used the North Korean port of Rajin in North Hamgyong Province for commercial trade since 2008. An official at the Tumen city government in northeast China said that a Chinese state company has now also obtained the rights to use the port of Chongjin, about 70 kilometers south of Rajin.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea affairs, said it could not immediately confirm the comments by the Chinese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s visit to Beijing earlier this year, the two countries have been strengthening their economic cooperation. China is the foremost ally of the cash-strapped North, which is under deepening sanctions for its nuclear testing.

The Chinese official also said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that North Korea and China have also agreed to allow Chinese companies to use North Korea’s railways from Tumen to Chonjin.

The series of agreements would “facilitate trade from Tumen,” the official said, adding the Chinese company that struck the deal to use the port of Chongjin will use it to carry out shipping agreements with three Chinese companies.

Here is a map of the Rajin port showing which pier the Chinese are leasing.

Read the full story here:
China allowed to use another N. Korean port: official
Yonhap
7/22/2010

By Michael Rank

China has launched a fleet of patrol boats to combat drug trafficking on the North Korean border, a Chinese website reports.

The report shows pictures of the four boats, which are being deployed on a stretch of the Yalu river known as Badaojiang八道江, but gives few details.

The only drug named in the report is opium, which North Korea is reported to produce in large quantities. It says officers warn local people not to become engaged in drug smuggling by showing them pictures of opium and other banned substances.

“The creation of the anti-drugs speedboat force is not just a foundation in the people’s war against drugs, it also increases our strength in banning drugs on the river border and will be a force for us in building a harmonious border and in contributing to a drugs-free border,” an official from the new force is quoted as saying.

A separate Chinese newspaper report names a methamphetamine (known as magu 麻古) as another of the main drugs smuggled between North Korea and China, and says a haul of 13,775 magu pills, seized in winter 2004, was the largest amount of drugs ever confiscated by Dandong border guards. It says smuggling reached a peak in the years 2000-2006 and gives little information about the current situation, probably because this is politically too sensitive.

But it does mention the killing of three Chinese smugglers by North Korean border guards in June, and says the dead men were members of a gang led by a man known as Sun Laoer who controls much of the smuggling on one particular stretch of the Yalu. One man was injured in the incident, for which China demanded an apology. North Korea said it was “an accident”, while according to a Chinese television report the North Koreans suspected the smugglers of being South Korean spies.

The Chinese newspaper report says the main goods smuggled between China and North Korea are drugs, scrap metal, cigarettes, DVDs, chemicals and secondhand cars.

The most notorious gang was led by an individual called Jiang Weijia, who specialised in smuggling cigarettes and oil products from North Korea into China. Between June and December 1999 Jiang smuggled 45.8 million yuan worth of cigarettes. The gang was finally smashed in 2003.

The article in Southern Weekend, one of China’s more adventurous newspapers, also mentions human trafficking across the border. It says that “in 1996 you could exchange 50 jin [25 kg] of rice for a Korean daughter-in-law” and adds that the women had to pretend to be deaf and dumb since if they opened their mouths and were found to be from North Korea they would be sent straight back.

It notes that “world opinion suspects that North Korean government departments are covertly involved in smuggling on the Chinese-North Korean border, the reason being that in a country where power is highly concentrated, it would otherwise be almost impossible for large-scale smuggling to take place on the Yalu river border. But despite such suspicions, there is no complete proof.”

The report recalls how in the 1990s North Koreans, in the wake of the famine, would exchange scrap copper for rice at a rate of one kg of metal for one kg of rice and that many North Korean factories were stripped bare of all their metal fittings.

It also recalls how in the 1960s North Korea was richer than China, which suffered through years of Mao-induced famine, and people from Dandong would cross the Yalu at night in search of food.

“This shouldn’t be called smuggling, should it. People were bartering for food in order to survive,” it quotes one man as saying. It quotes another man as saying the border was largely unguarded until recently and when he was a boy (in the 1990s apparently) he would cross the frozen river in winter and North Korean guards would give him sweets.

The report says border trade with North Korea stopped during the Korean war, was revived in 1958 and faded during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 70s. It was officially revived in September 1981 with an agreement between China’s Liaoning province and North Korea’s Pyeong’an Bakdo. Most of the trade from the early 1980s consisted of China bartering oil for fish.

The article says China-Korean smuggling goes back centuries, and in the 1930s an area of Dandong near the river called Shahezi 沙河子 was a famous smuggling centre under the Japanese. It also says a Qing dynasty customs office has been restored in Jiuliancheng 九连城, some 20 km from Dandong, and the area remains a smuggling centre.

North Korea has been widely reported to be a significant producer of illicit drugs. The CIA World Factbook notes  that for years, from the 1970s into the 2000s, citizens of North Korea, many of them diplomats, were apprehended abroad while trafficking in narcotics and police investigations in Taiwan and Japan in recent years have linked North Korea to large illicit shipments of heroin and methamphetamine, including an attempt by the North Korean merchant ship Pong Su to deliver 150 kg of heroin to Australia in April 2003.

In 2004 the Jamestown Foundation published a report by a North Korean defector who says he “learned of and witnessed first-hand the drug trafficking activities of the North Korean regime” when he worked for the North Korean National Security Agency from 1983 until 1998.

According to the Joong Ang Ilbo:

North Korea is allowing Chinese fishermen into its territorial waters on the East Sea in exchange for cash, according to Seoul government officials.

The North Korean and Chinese governments recently agreed to allow squid boats from China to fish in North Korea’s waters, said a Seoul official who declined to be named.

About 250 Chinese boats are operating near Najin [Rajin/Rason] and Chongjin, two port cities in North Hamgyong Province, a northeast coastal area. It is the first time such a large number of Chinese crafts have been allowed to operate in North Korea’s seas, he said.

North Korea is collecting about 250,000 yuan ($36,913) for each boat for 2010, meaning the impoverished country is expected to earn about 62.5 million yuan in the deal.

“Many of the North’s fishing boats are extremely outdated and are experiencing intense fuel oil shortages, while squid prices in China have gone up due to supply shortages,” the official said. “So each side’s interests have been satisfied.”

North Korea has been hungry for more cash to finance state projects, including a so-called Pyongyang modernization project that involves paving major roads, upgrading railway networks and refurbishing urban streets.

“They are trying to secure more foreign currency through a commercial deal that is not subject to UN Security Council Resolution 1874,” said the official, referring to the UN economic sanctions adopted in June 2009 that involve trade restrictions, cargo inspections and other limits on financial transactions.

The Chinese fishing boats operating in the North’s sea mostly come from Dalian and Dandong, two ports in China’s northeastern coastal region.

“The fishing rights the Chinese boats have secured cover most of the North’s territorial waters on the East Sea,” said another Seoul official. The official expressed concern about possible overfishing by the Chinese, which may affect South Korean fishermen as well.

“Once squid start moving to the south, the Chinese fishing boats will travel farther south, possibly all the way down to Heungnam, Sinpo and Wonsan,” said another South Korean government official, referring to the North’s port cities in South Hamgyong Province.

Read the full article below:
North Korea leases out its squid beds to China
Joong Ang Ilbo
Chung Yong-soo
7/15/2010

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No.10-07-08-2
7-8-2010

As inter-Korean commerce has all but dried up in the wake of the Cheonan incident, trade between North Korea and China appears to have continued to grow. According to Chinese customs statistics released on July 6, trade with North Korea from January to May amounted to 983.63 million USD; 18.1 percent more than the 833.07 million USD reported for the same period last year.

North Korea imported 727.192 million USD-worth of Chinese goods (29 percent increase over the same period last year), but exports dropped by 4.9 percent, amounting to only 256.438 million USD. This indicates a 60 percent increase in North Korea’s trade deficit with China, which was 470.757 million USD in the first part of 2009. With South Korean sanctions against the North halting all inter-Korean trade outside of the Kaesong Industrial Complex following the sinking of the Cheonan, it is expected that Pyongyang will become even more economically dependent on Beijing.

During this period, crude oil accounted for most of North Korea’s imports from China, as Pyongyang bought 254,000 tons (slightly more than the 247,000 tons in early 2009). However, due to rising international fuel prices, this oil cost the North 157.097 million USD, a 76 percent increase over what Pyongyang spent during this period last year.

In addition, rice (24,400 tons), corn (31,400 tons), beans (20,500 tons), flour (34,000 tons) and other necessary food imports totaling 11,300 tons reflected a 41 percent increase over the same period in 2009. The cost of fertilizer imports also jumped sharply, amounting to 81,943 tons, or 115.6 percent more than the 38,004 tons imported from January to May 2009. Increasing imports of food and fertilizer are a result of the growing agricultural difficulties being faced in the North. Based on current prices, aviation fuel imports also grew by 46.8 percent, freight trucks by 98.7 percent, automobile fuel by 47.4 percent, and bituminous coal by 137 percent.

The top ten official imports of Chinese goods by North Korea were as follows: crude oil (21.6 percent); aviation fuel (3.1 percent); freight trucks (2.9 percent); automobile fuel (2 percent); bituminous coal (1.9 percent); fertilizer (1.8 percent); beans (1.6 percent); flour (1.6 percent); rice (1.5 percent); and corn (1.1 percent).

North Korea’s exports to China were mainly underground natural resources. The top ten exported goods were: iron ore (17.1 percent); anthracite (16 percent); pig iron (9.6 percent); zinc (5 percent); Magnesite (3.6 percent); lead (2.4 percent); silicon (2.3 percent); men’s clothing (2.2 percent); frozen squid (2.1 percent); and aluminum (1.9 percent).

According to Bernama (Malaysia):

China will build a huge centre to recycle wastes from Russia and North Korea, in a city that borders the two countries, local authorities said Wednesday.

The centre is expected to recycle nearly three million tonnes of scrap machines, cables, appliances, vehicles, mobile phones, batteries, plastics and other wastes each year, Xinhua reported.

Northeast China’s Jilin Province has approved the recycling centre in Hunchun City. It will cover 135 hectares of land and the facility’s combined floor space will top 500,000 square meters, an official with the publicity department of Hunchun City Government said.

The project is expected to create nearly 10,000 jobs, and its annual output value will reach 15 billion yuan (US$2.21 billion) after it becomes operational, said the spokesman.

However, the spokesman did not elaborate further on the details regarding construction of the centre.

Read the full story here:
China To Recycle Waste From Russia, North Korea
Bernama
7/7/2010

According to Yonhap:

Trade between North Korea and China in the January-May period increased 18 percent compared to last year, a sign that Pyongyang continues to expand economic ties with Beijing amid soured relations with Seoul, figures showed Tuesday.

North Korea imported US$727.2 million worth of goods from China and exported $256.4 million in the five-month period this year, according to figures recently released by Chinese customs authorities and obtained by Yonhap News Agency.

Read the full story here:
Trade between N. Korea, China rises, signaling closer economic ties
Yonhap
Sam Kim
7/6/2010

According ot the Daily NK:

People working for North Korean enterprises overseas are concerned by their poor financial performance and excessive requests for remittances since the Cheonan incident and Kim Jong Il’s visit to China.

Cheong is one such businessman. In his 50s now, he has been residing in Shenyang since the early 2000s working on exports of North Korean mineral resources. He has won recognition from home for his efforts, but nowadays he is growing more anxious and says he has lost his composure.

Upon meeting with The Daily NK’s correspondent, who arranged the meeting in the guise of a businessman, Cheong said frankly that life is exceedingly hard at the moment.

“Even though the General (Kim Jong Il) visited China, there were no clear promises of Chinese aid or investment in North Korea,” Cheong says. “Therefore, the authorities are requesting more foreign investment and that money be given to the country in order to get past the situation.”

According to him, the authorities have threatened to merge export offices that do not perform to expectations. He says he plans to avoid this by first gathering around $2,000 to remit to Pyongyang, and then visiting the North Korean capital to check on the domestic situation next month.

He says that the failure of the currency redenomination has affected the credit worthiness of North Korea. China-based traders are anxious about the situation as the number of foreign investments and sales has deteriorated this year.

“Since the route for seafood exports to South Chosun has been blocked, we have been instructed to sell it all in China,” he adds. “Although the quality is quite good, we have to have dumping sales in order to find immediate ways to sell it. Therefore, profits are reduced and we have to compensate for the loss. It is terrible.”

He says he has thought about going back to the North, but his wife bitterly opposes it for their son’s education. She was surprised by Cheong’s thought, he says, since the couple had even devised a method to bring their daughter, who is still in Pyongyang, to China.

He explains, “Even those who are known as old hands and who are seen as very skilled in foreign currency earning business look worried about the need for ‘loyalty funds.’ They are eager to make contacts in powerful positions by whatever means necessary, because background and supporters can be decisive in your life.”

One example, Kang, who is in charge of importing light industrial products in Beijing, dropped by Shenyang on his way to meetings with other branch managers. He became a well-known trader after he made good money supplying air conditioners to the Mansudae Assembly Hall and fabric to the military authorities.

His business is stable because he is known as a “Kim Jong Nam person”, i.e. a close associate of Kim Jong Il’s first son, and his life is also stable; he resides in a luxurious apartment in Beijing and his son is studying in the U.K.

However, even he has grown concerned lately, he says. “Decrees demanding increased ‘loyalty funds’ have been constantly handed down,” he explains. “The amount they request has increased by two or three times. It is awful.”

North Korean traders residing in Shenyang generally agree that, in Kang’s words, “In order to survive overseas, Kim Jong Eun is now a lifeline. When chiefs of foreign offices go to Pyongyang, they busy themselves trying to find invisible backers (i.e. Kim Jong Eun) to give a few thousand dollars to.”

Read the full story here:
North Korean Traders Feeling Pinch
Daily NK
Jung Kwon Ho and Shin Joo Hyun
6/16/2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

North Korea asked China to provide it with the latest J-10 fighter jets and other hardware but was rejected, it emerged Wednesday.

According to a high-ranking source in the North, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made the request to Chinese President Hu Jintao when he visited China in early May. But Hu apparently told Kim that China will protect and support him if attacked.

Observers guess this is the reason why Kim left a day earlier than scheduled.

One North Korean defector who used to be a high-ranking official said, “Kim is increasingly afraid of an attack by South Korean and U.S. forces” following the North’s sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette in March. The North Korean leader therefore wanted to get his hands on the latest Chinese fighter jets to counter South Korea’s F-15 and F-16 fighter planes.

“Kim wouldn’t have visited China with such a large entourage if he merely wanted economic assistance,” the defector said. Another North Korean defector and former soldier said Pyongyang may have bolstered its so-called asymmetric warfare capabilities by strengthening special forces “but still lags behind South Korea in terms of naval and air force capabilities and feels threatened.”

There is speculation that North Korea is forced to lean on China because it does not have the money to buy expensive Sukhoi fighters from Russia.

Read the full article here:
Kim Jong-il Demands Fighter Jets from China
Choson Ilbo
6/17/2010

According to the AFP:

North Korea has completely cut off state food rations after China failed to supply the impoverished communist country with extra cereals, a welfare group said Monday.

The ruling communist party announced in a directive on May 26 that there would be no state rations for a while, said South Korea’s Good Friends group which has contacts in the North.

People were authorised to buy food supplies through private markets, it said, adding the directive was due to delayed shipments of food from China.

“The directive was unavoidable” because China failed to send the aid which had been anticipated after leader Kim Jong-Il’s trip to Beijing in early May, group president Pomnyun, who uses just one name, told reporters.

Private markets are now open around the clock across the North, he said.

The North suffered famine in the mid-1990s which killed hundreds of thousands and it still grapples with severe food shortages. The UN children’s fund estimates one third of children are stunted by malnutrition.

The state food distribution system collapsed during the famine. Free markets sprang up and were condoned for a time.

Since 2005 the regime has been reasserting its grip on the economy, with controls or outright bans on the private markets.

A currency revaluation last November, designed to flush out entrepreneurs’ savings, backfired disastrously, fuelling food shortages as market trading dried up and sparking rare outbreaks of unrest.

The North was forced to suspend its campaign to curb the private markets.

Read the full story here:
N.Korea completely cuts off state rations: aid group
AFP
6/14/2010

UPDATE 2: According to the Daily NK:

The recent shooting of four Chinese smugglers on the border between North Korea and China by a North Korean border guard was due to a quarrel between the Chinese smugglers and North Korean border guards about an antiques smuggling ring, according to a local trader.

The North Korean border guard shot the four smugglers on June 4th; three were killed and one was wounded. Afterwards, the North Korean authorities apparently issued an apology for the accident to the Dandong municipal government and paid compensation to the victims’ families.

The trader, Kim, who lives in Dandong, reported the details of the shooting accident to The Daily NK earlier this week. The spot where the accident happened was on a boat around Hwanggeumpyeong on Shin Island at the mouth of the Yalu River, he explained, where the facilities of the Shinuiju Shoe Factory are located.

According to Kim, although it was reported in some quarters that the North Korean border guard did not know who was on the boat and fired at it in the dark, in fact, both sides already had close relations.

They were well acquainted with each other thanks to smuggling, Kim said; the North Korean guard had apparently passed several antiques which he had obtained in the North to the Chinese smugglers. However, the Chinese smugglers did not pay for them and severed contacts with him.

The antiques the North Korean guard had procured included rare pieces of white Chosun dynasty china, he said.

After the Chinese smugglers disappeared, the guard tried to find them for a while, but then encountered them by chance while on his patrols.

The guard chased and eventually caught them, then they argued, but the smugglers refused to pay money for the antiques, claiming they were all imitations.

After a while, the smugglers said they would give other goods of equivalent value instead of money and then tried to leave, at which point the guard apparently shot them.

Kim also reported the details of the North’s official response. After the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement heavily critical of the shooting, the North sent a delegate to Dandong on the 15th to apologize, he explained.

In a meeting with Dandong governmental officials, the North’s delegate reportedly said it happened accidentally, and expressed the North’s sincere apologies for the accident.

The delegate apparently added that the North would restrict shooting towards the Chinese side and suggested that both sides should strengthen their mutual regulations on smuggling. He also paid $3,000 for each death as per the stipulations of a treaty between the two countries.

Kim said, “I thought the compensation was too low, so I asked once again, but their answer was that it is stipulated by the treaty.”

He added, “They promised the Chinese side that the border guard who shot the Chinese would be severely punished on suspicion of smuggling antiques and killing citizens of an allied country.”

UPDATE 1:  According to Reuters:

The isolated North made the effort to soothe China, its sole major economic and political supporter, after North Korean border guards last week shot at the Chinese nationals crossing the river border near the northeast Chinese city of Dandong.

Three were killed and a fourth was wounded.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said both countries were now “further investigating and handling the case”. He provided no other details.

On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry made a rare public complaint about its neighbor and now North Korea appears to be seeking to placate Beijing.

North Korean border authorities said an initial investigation showed the incident was an “accident”, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

“The North Korean side expressed its grief over the Chinese deaths, and offered condolences to the families of the dead and to the injured, and will severely punish the perpetrators,” said the report.

“The North Korean border security authorities will further investigate this incident and prevent such incidents from recurring.”

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Associated Press:

A North Korean border guard shot and killed three Chinese citizens and wounded a fourth on the countries’ border last week, China said Tuesday after lodging a formal diplomatic protest.

The guard shot the four residents of the northeastern border town of Dandong last Friday, apparently on suspicion they were crossing the border for illegal trade, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

“On the morning of June 4, some residents of Dandong, in Liaoning province, were shot by a DPRK border guard on suspicion of crossing the border for trade activities, leaving three dead and one injured,” he said at a regularly scheduled news conference. He used the acronym for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“China attaches great importance to that and has immediately raised a solemn representation with the DPRK. Now the case is under investigation,” he said.

Dandong is a major shipping point and rail link for goods going into and out of North Korea from China.

Qin did not give any further information. There have been some reports in South Korean media on the incident, though North Korea has not acknowledged the shootings.

And how did the South Koreans react?  According to the Los Angeles Times:

The irony of China’s protest over last week’s shooting was not lost on South Korea.

“This time it is their citizens who are killed, and they show they are not so naive after all about North Korea,” said Kim Tae Jin, a North Korean defector and human rights activist in Seoul. However, he applauded China’s protest of the shooting. China needs to show North Korean leader Kim Jong Il “that he can’t get away with whatever he wants,” Kim said.

China’s public protest is unusual in that relations between China and North Korea are normally shrouded in secrecy, to be discussed only in the politburos of the longtime communist allies.

“It is rare for China to publicly complain. Usually there is a private apology or money paid,” said Kim Heung Gwang, a former North Korean college professor and head of Seoul-based North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity.

The stretch of the Yalu just south of Dandong is frequently trafficked by smugglers, some of them bringing North Korean-made drugs into China or banned Chinese products, such as DVDs or cellphones, into North Korea.

The North Korean government is especially strict about the export of copper, which has been looted from factories, electrical and telecommunications facilities by Northerners desperate for money. But the North’s border guards do not normally shoot to kill — at least not when the smugglers are Chinese.

“Only their own people,” said Kim.

Read the full stories here:
China says NKorean border guard killed 3 Chinese
Associated Press
Tini Tran
6/8/2010

China makes rare public protest against North Korea over killing of 3
Los Angeles Times
Barbara Demick
6/9/2010

North Korea seeks to soothe China over border shootings
Reuters
6/10/2010