North Korean Economy Watch

Myanmar severed diplomatic relations with the DPRK after North Korean agents attempted to assassinate South Korea  president Chun Doo Hwan on his October 1983 visit to Rangoon.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were restored in April 2007.  Shortly after, North Korea was accused of selling rocket launchers to Myanmar’s SPDC (Orwellian acronym for: State Peace and Development Council)–formerly known as SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council).

Now the AFP reports that trade has expanded into natural resources, with which Myanmar is abundantly blessed:

Military-run Myanmar is to begin exporting rubber to North Korea, in a further warming of relations between the reclusive governments of the two countries, a weekly newspaper reported Tuesday.

“They will start by importing at least 10,000 tonnes within the first year,” Khaing Myint of the Myanmar Rubber Planters and Producers Association was quoted as saying by the Myanmar Times.

“We are extremely pleased to add another client nation to our export destinations for our rubber. We expect the first batch to be delivered in October,” Khaing Myint reportedly said.

Read the full article here:
Myanmar to begin rubber exports to North Korea
AFP
8/19/2008

Reuters excerpt: 

North Korea has been selling multiple rocket launchers to military-ruled Myanmar since the two countries restored ties last year in violation of U.N. sanctions, Japan’s NHK public broadcaster reported.

Quoting unspecified diplomatic sources, NHK said in a report late on Wednesday that the launchers were the same type as those deployed near the demilitarized zone separating the Korean peninsula.

The report could not be independently confirmed.

A Security Council resolution passed after North Korea’s 2006 nuclear test blocks trade with the secretive communist country in dangerous weapons, heavy conventional weapons and luxury goods.

Read the whole story here:
North Korea sells rocket launchers to Myanmar: report
Reuters
4/3/2008

Joong Ang Daily
Brian Lee
11/1/2007

Newspapers indicate a desire for more outside interactions

North Korea is increasingly sending out signals through its state media indicating a desire to interact more with the outside world.

The North’s communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial earlier this week that it is no longer a time for production and construction to be achieved through the workers’ bare hands alone.

“We are stressing self-sufficiency, but that does not mean we are disregarding international economic relations while striving to build our economy,” the newspaper said. “The republic has always maintained its position that it wants to have good relations, even with capitalist countries.”

The Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan widely believed to be representing North Korea’s views, also said this week that progress in the six-party talks reflected Pyongyang’s political will to improve ties with neighboring countries.

“The nuclear test was Pyongyang’s tool to change the stalemate with Washington,” said Koh Yoo-hwan, a North Korean specialist at Dongguk University. “It got its attention and now both sides are talking. The diplomatic exchanges with other countries are a sign from the North that it can accept capitalist methods and that it is open to the outside. This is not coming just out of the blue. In the North everything is planned from the top and all these moves are done strategically. They want to connect to the outside.”

Yesterday, North Korea restored diplomatic ties with Burma after 24 years of severed ties over the North’s involvement in a bomb attack on South Korean cabinet members in 1983, The Associated Press reported.

North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il has also embarked on a rare sweep of the Asian region, visiting Vietnam last week with Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos also on his itinerary.

Washington has tried in its own way to lure the isolated North more into the open.

A visit by the New York Philharmonic to the North is being pondered while the JoongAng Sunday reported that the North’s women’s soccer team may visit the United States.

In a related development, Christopher Hill, Washington’s chief representative to the six-party talks, met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-gwan in Beijing yesterday to discuss progress in the nuclear negotiations.

Hill is scheduled to arrive in Seoul today to brief officials here on the meeting, a government official said yesterday on condition of anonymity.

Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters a U.S. team of nuclear experts is scheduled to enter the North today to take actual steps to disable the North’s key nuclear facilities. Pyongyang said earlier this week that such measures would start within this week.

Yonhap
9/14/2007

North Korea and Myanmar on Friday signed an agreement on cooperation between their foreign ministries, the North’s official news agency reported without providing details.

“An agreement on cooperation between the foreign ministries of the DPRK and Myanmar was inked here on Friday,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a dispatch from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

The DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.

The agreement is viewed as the first concrete step toward normalizing the countries’ relations since they agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties in April.

Myanmar severed its ties with the communist North in 1983 following a failed assassination attempt by North Korean agents on then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, who was visiting the south Asian nation.

Twenty-one people, including South Korean Cabinet ministers and presidential aides, were killed in the 1983 bombing.

Friday’s agreement was signed by the North’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il and his Myanmarese counterpart U Kyaw Thu, according to the KCNA report.

Joong Ang Daily
ser Myo Ja
4/27/2007

North Korea and Burma, two of the world’s harshest dictatorships, agreed yesterday to restore diplomatic ties 24 years after Pyongyang was implicated in a deadly bomb attack which targeted South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, who was visiting Rangoon.

North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim Young-il, arrived in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma, also known as Myanmar, on Wednesday. Kim and Kyaw Thu, Burma’s deputy foreign minister, signed an agreement yesterday to reestablish relations between the two countries, Thu said.

The specifics of the agreement were not released.

The October 9, 1983 bombing was one of the most audacious acts of terror ever attributed to a nation-state. During an official visit, Chun planned to lay a wreath at a mausoleum dedicated to Aung San, the founder of modern Burma. Chun was delayed by traffic, but 21 people were killed, including three Korean cabinet ministers, when bombs in the roof of the mausoleum exploded. Burma quickly blamed the attack on North Korea.

Shortly after the bombing, Burmese authorities arrested three North Korean agents, one of whom killed himself. The other two were convicted and sentenced to death. Jin Mo was executed in 1985, but Kang Min-chol’s sentence was reduced to life in prison because he confessed.

Kang, 51, has been held at Insein prison near Rangoon. Irrawaddy, a magazine published by Burmese exiles, reported in its current issue that Kang did not wish to return to either Korea if he is released from prison. A former inmate told the magazine, “Kang said he did not want to go to the North because he would be treated as a traitor and he did not want to go to the South because he would be punished for the terror.”

North Korea has denied responsibility for the incident, claiming that it was a South Korean conspiracy to frame the North.

South Korea respects Myanmar’s decision to restore ties with N. Korea
Yonhap
4/26/2007

South Korea respects Myanmar’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with North Korea, a government spokesman said Thursday.

The spokesman said that South Korea expects the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after 24 years will provide momentum for North Korea’s opening and contribute to peace and stability in the region.

Myanmar severed ties with North Korea following a bomb attack by North Korean agents on the entourage of then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan at the Aung San Mausoleum in Yangoon in October 1983.

Meanwhile, North Korea confirmed foreign news reports that the two sides agreed to reopen diplomatic relations, quoting a joint communique on the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the DPRK and the Union of Myanmar.

DPRK is the acronym for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official title.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported, “According to the joint communique, the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the government of the Union of Myanmar, desirous of developing friendly relations and bilateral cooperation between the two countries and peoples, based on the principles of respect for each other’s sovereignty, non-interference in their internal affairs, and equality and mutual benefit, as well as the norms of international law and the objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter, have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18th April 1961.”