North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE 1 (2012-4-25): Better late than never!  The statue of Kim Jong-suk has finally been unveiled. According to KCNA:

A hall where stands a wax replica of anti-Japanese war hero Kim Jong Suk was opened at the International Friendship Exhibition House of the DPRK.

Standing in the hall is a wax replica depicting woman commander of anti-Japanese guerillas Kim Jong Suk in uniform of the anti-Japanese guerrilla army on the table land full of azaleas in full bloom against the background of Mt. Paektu.

The gifts she received from personages and people of various countries are on display there.

An opening ceremony took place on Tuesday.

Present there were Kim Ki Nam and Choe Thae Bok, members of the Political Bureau and secretaries of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and others.

Present there on invitation were staff members of the Chinese embassy here and the chief of the hall of wax replicas of great persons in China and his party.

Choe Thae Bok expressed deep thanks to personages of the Chinese hall for representing the wax replica of Kim Jong Suk.

He said the noble life of Kim Jong Suk was the most brilliant one of an outstanding woman revolutionary.

Zhang Molei, chief of the hall, in his speech bitterly grieved over the demise of leader Kim Jong Il, saying it was their wish to successfully represent the wax replica of Kim Jong Suk so they could please leader Kim Jong Il.

Expressing the will to do more things to contribute to the building of thriving socialist nation in the DPRK, he expressed belief that the Korean people would overcome difficulties and win great victory under the leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong Un.

The participants paid tribute to Kim Jong Suk and looked round the gifts on display.

You can see video of the unveiling here (KCNA, YouTube).

ORIGINAL POST (20120-10-19): According to the Korea Times:

China plans to send North Korea a life-size statue of Kim Jong-il’s biological mother as a gift, a local newspaper said, citing a North Korean document.

The waxwork statue of Kim Jong-sook, reportedly proposed by Kim Jong-il and accepted by China, will be shipped to the North in early December, Dong-a Ilbo said Saturday.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the marriage between Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea, and Kim Jong-sook.

The project will be carried out by the China Waxwork Museum for Great Figures, which in the past also built famous Chinese individuals such as Mao Zedong and Jiang Zemin, the report said.

The North Korean Embassy in Beijing thanked the museum for carrying out the task which will “further enhance ties between the peoples of the two countries,” the report said, citing a North Korean embassy document dated July 15, which it obtained.

The newspaper didn’t say how it obtained the document.

Once completed, the statue will be sent to North Korea by a 10-member Chinese delegation and will be placed next to the wax statue of Kim Il-sung, which was also donated by China in 1996, it said.

Read the full story here:
China to donate statue of Kim Jong-il’s mother
Korea Times
10/16/2010

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

According to the Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP):

NKIDP is pleased to announce the release of e-Dossier No. 5, “New Romanian Evidence on the Blue House Raid and the USS Pueblo Incident” and the addition of 28 new documents to its online Digital Archive.

The e-Dossier contains 28 translated documents from Romanian archives on two of the most serious flashpoints since the signing of the 1953 Korean War Armistice: the failed North Korean commando attack and attempted assassination of Park Chung Hee on January 21, 1968, commonly known as the Blue House Raid, and North Korea’s seizure of an American intelligence vessel, the USS Pueblo, on January 23, 1968.

The Romanian documents open an exciting new window into socialist bloc policies and perspectives on the Blue House Raid and the Pueblo crisis.

The e-Dossier features introductions from Mitchell Lerner, associate professor of history and director of the Institute for Korean Studies at The Ohio State University and author of The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (University of Kansas Press, 2002), and Jong-Dae Shin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

Click here to read “New Romanian Evidence on the Blue House Raid and the USS Pueblo Incident” in full

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2012-4-12

China is currently actively recruiting investors to build additional wharfs in Rajin Port.

China’s Dandong City Industrial and Information Association (丹东市信息协会) announced that it is seeking investments for the construction of tanker wharf under 10,000 ton and affiliated facilities. This organization has received 45 year usage rights from the Rason City People’s Committee and stated that it needed 330 million CNY (52 million USD) to cover the construction cost. According to the association, the investment is attractive because of its geographic location, reduced transit time and costs, and tax-free benefits, for which a special permit was obtained from the North Korean authorities granting trade goods coming from Jilin Province at the Hunchun Port to be allowed entry tax-free. In addition, cargo will be permitted to be sent from Rajin Port to other ports in China.

Meanwhile, North Korea is also planning to build a new port in the Rajin-Sonbong area with a state-of-the-art container distribution capacity. According to the “Rajin New Port Development Plan,” Rajin port development will undergo major transformation as an international hub port, similar to Busan Harbor, unlike the previous small-scale renovations of Piers 1, 2, and 3. This new port is expected to be built across from the current Rajin Port.

Rajin Port development was initially considered as a remodeling project to update the existing wharfs. In 2003, China began to implement construction of Piers 1, 2, and 3. However, the piers began to deteriorate and for the lack of railway and road infrastructure in the area, it delayed the transportation and distribution and could not perform its full function. As a solution, in 2008, North Korea transferred the usage right of Pier 1 to China and Pier 3 to Russia. At that time, Pier 1 was developed to primarily transport chemical fertilizers but it was recently updated as a transportation dock for coal. Russia, in addition to the port, also carried out a modernization project of the Rajin-Hassan railway system to improve the transport of containers.

The new port development plan as suggested by North Korea indicates Jian Group of China as the responsible party for developing the new port into a container port. However, considering that North Korea’s industry does not call for container ports, it is more likely that North Korea is expanding the port to make it a hub port to ship cargo to China, Russia, and Europe. Considering Rajin Port’s geographical advantage, it is likely that North Korea is striving to make it into an international hub port that connects the Pacific with Northeast Asia.

China’s recent advertisement of investment is also considered to be linked with the new port development in Rajin Port.

UPDATE 1 (2012-4-17): George Russell writing in Fox News follows up on WIPO’s effort ship computers to the DPRK:

A United Nations agency that quietly shipped computers and computer servers to North Korea several months ago apparently was violating restrictions on the equipment’s use imposed by Hewlett-Packard, the U.S.-based maker of the computers and computer servers, which bars any HP equipment from being sent to the communist dictatorship as part of its supplier agreements.

More below…

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According to Swissinfo:

Agape international is a Swiss charity with about 60 development and aid projects on the go in 15 countries. It has been active in North Korea since 1995, where its focus is agriculture and energy.

Burckhardt travels to North Korea a couple of times a year and has even lived there for up to a few months at a time. Despite his knowledge, he has experienced ageism personally.

“As long as you don’t have grey hair, you cannot tell an older person to do something. I can make suggestions, but I cannot tell someone what to do,” Burckhardt told swissinfo.ch.

Agri-challenged
One area where North Korea has really needed advice is agriculture. After initial donations of food to help fight the famine of the mid-1990s, Agape has been helping local farmers improve their techniques.

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Pictured above (Google Earth): A map of the Khasan-Rajin Port rail service.

UPDATE 9 (2012-4-2) : DPRK and Russia to start cross-border freight train service in October. According to KCNA:

Rajin-Khassan Cargo Train Service to Begin in October

Pyongyang, April 2 (KCNA) — A Rajin-Khassan cargo train service will run from October this year.

Kim Chang Sik, a department director of the DPRK Ministry of Railways, told KCNA that the laying of railroad and renovation of railway stations, tunnels and communications facilities are now under way in the section.

The railway project was highlighted in the historic DPRK-Russia Moscow Declaration, which was signed in August 2001, he said, adding:

In line with the declaration, a cooperation agreement between the DPRK Ministry of Railways and the Russia Railway Holding Corporation was concluded in April 2008 to be followed by an agreement on joint venture between Rajin Port and the Corporation.

A contract on the lease of the Rajin-Tumangang railway was made between the Ministry’s Eastern Railway Ryonun Company and the Rason International Joint Venture Container Terminal, under which the 54 km-section has been rebuilt into a mixed track from October 2008.
A trial train service took place in October 2011 between Rajin of the DPRK and Khassan of Russia.

At least 100,000 containers will be yearly carried along the line.

This section will serve as an international railway container transport line linking Northeast Asia with Europe.

KCNA also offered this video.

Yonhap also reported:

North Korea and Russia will start a cross-border cargo train service in October, Pyongyang’s state media reported Monday, in a move that could make a North Korean port a regional hub for Europe-bound shipments.

The announcement came more than three years after the two countries launched a project to rebuild two rail lines between Russia’s Far Eastern border town of Khasan and North Korea’s northeastern port city of Rajin.

The North designated Rason, which includes the Rajin port, as a special economic zone in 1991 and has since striven to develop it into a regional logistics hub close to both China and Russia.

In October, North Korea and Russia held a test run on the 54-kilometer-long railway line.

The proposed cargo service can handle 100,000 shipping containers each year, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch.

The renovation project, if completed, will offer a new route of container transportation between Northeast Asia and Europe, the dispatch said, and could significantly reduce shipping time and costs.

The freight service could also help boost relations between North Korea and Russia, including their economic cooperation, the dispatch said.

The trade volume between North Korea and Russia stood at US$110 million in 2010, the latest year for which statistics are available, according to South Korea’s state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.

Russia maintains friendly ties with North Korea, though its leader Dmitry Medvedev has strongly denounced North Korea’s rocket launch set for sometime between April 12 and 16.

Medvedev made the remarks during summit talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul last month on the sidelines of an international nuclear summit, according to Lee’s office.

Historical posts on this topic below:

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Andrei Lankov writes in The Asian:

However, the decades-long experience of dealing with North Korea leaves little doubt: international sanctions do not work. When the sanctions were first introduced after the October 2006 nuclear test and tightened after the second 2009 nuclear test, many a hardliner believed that this was the way to press the North Korean government into a corner and make them consider denuclearization. In academic articles, newspaper pieces and blog entries, many a hawk was ready to interpret pretty much every piece of news that emanated from the North as a sign of ‘sanctioning beginning to bite’.

But what has happened to the North Korean economy over the past five to six years? Contrary to expectations, the era of sanctions has been, rather, a time of mild economic recovery and growth. The expectations of hardliners therefore have as yet, come to nothing.

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The Sons of Jubal, an all-male chorus and orchestra made up entirely of Georgians, has been invited to perform during the Spring Arts Festival in Pyongyang, DPRK (North Korea). They are the largest American group ever invited to enter the country. The visit is the culmination of years of preparation. They will also perform additional concerts in Beijing, China.

Here is the press release:

All-Male Chorus and Orchestra to perform in Pyongyang, DPRK 

ATLANTA—A 150-member all-male chorus and orchestra from the Atlanta area will perform in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during their Spring Arts Festival in April.

The chorus and orchestra, named the Sons of Jubal, will be one of the largest musical groups of Americans ever to enter the DPRK. The Sons of Jubal was founded in 1954 and consists of volunteer professional musicians, church musicians, educators, and institutional leaders from the state of Georgia.

Global Resource Services, Inc. (GRS), a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Atlanta, is coordinating the cultural exchange. Through its “Advocacy for the Arts” program, GRS is providing opportunities to promote goodwill and reconciliation.

GRS has already sent three other groups to DPRK, including the Grammy Award Winning group, Casting Crowns. The organization has three main principles: relationships, respect, and reconciliation.

“We are excited that this opportunity has come after a decade and a half of experience in DPRK-United States musical exchanges,” said Robert Springs, GRS Chief Executive Officer and President.

The Sons of Jubal will also have performances in Beijing, China, which will include a brass choir, handbell choir, and vocal ensemble. The group has presented concerts in major halls, local churches, and communities in the United States, Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Russia.

“This is a historic opportunity for the group and I am privileged to be a part of this great musical endeavor,” commented Dr. Jon Duncan, conductor of the group for the past 10 years.

The Sons of Jubal performs an extensive repertoire in the classics, Broadway show tunes, spirituals, and contemporary genres. Members of the Sons of Jubal will leave on April 10 and return to Georgia on April 23.

UPDATE: Here is a follow up article on the group (Augusta Chronicle):

Last month, amid reports of rocket launches in North Korea, a handful of Augusta pastors and musicians were quietly making history.

They were part of a men’s choir that performed in North Korea and China.

The 150-member Sons of Jubal, who are ministers from churches across the Georgia Baptist Convention, is the largest group of Americans to visit North Korea in decades, according to Global Resource Services, an Atlanta nonprofit that coordinated the trip.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We made history,” said the Rev. Roy Kiser, an associate pastor with senior adults at First Baptist Church of North Augusta. He has sung in the choir for 14 years.

The choir performed American show tunes, Korean folk songs and a few hymns at various venues, including a Beijing Christian church; the Morang Hill Symphony Hall, the home of the North Korean National Symphony Orchestra; and a spring festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung, the first rule or North Korea, who died in 1994.

For those two weeks, members of Sons of Jubal were celebrities everywhere they went, said the Rev. Keith Burrow, an associate minister of music and senior adults at First Baptist Church of Augusta, who has sung in the choir for five years.

“We were the first Americans a lot of them had ever met,” he said.

The performances took more than three years of planning and six months of rehearsals. The choir worked hard to learn How Great Thou Art in Chinese, and a few traditional Korean songs, Burrow said.

“Music has a way of breaking down barriers in ways other things can’t,” he said. “You could feel the two people groups coming together, all because we sang in their language.”

Between concerts, the group did a little sightseeing, stopping at both the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square. Under military escort, the group toured the north side of the demilitarized zone that separates North Korea from South Korea.

Upon returning from the tour, church members have asked Burrow whether he ever felt scared while traveling through the communist countries.

“Not once,” he said. “Because of the (political) relations between us and them, we really didn’t know what to expect. We saw over and over again that people are people no matter where they are.”

Kiser agreed.

“They rolled out the red carpet for us,” he said. “Everyone was friendly, personable. They made quite the positive impression.”

So did one translator in particular, Burrow said.

“Our guide told us, ‘I will never look at Americans the same way again.’ She said, ‘I hope you never look at Koreans the same way again either.’ ”

According to Reliefweb (2012-3-23):

According to the World Food Programme of the United Nations, one in three children is affected permanently by hunger, mal- or undernutrition to a degree so alarming that the children are too small for their age. Also one in four nursing mothers is mal- or undernourished – and we can imagine the consequences for the infants.

In order to help above all those who are weakened by diseases, we offer support in the form of food supplies and together with a local partner of humedica we sent another relief good shipment, this time containing 20 tons of rice, to the DPR of Korea on March 23.

The nutritious staple will be provided to the hospital in Haeju (Hwanghae-namdo province), where ill children, women and men are offered medical treatment during their stay as in-patients. Thanks to the humedica shipment, these patients will regain new strength.

Haeju is a city of 222,396 inhabitants. It is located at the western coast of the country, 140 kilometres south of the capital of Pyongyang. Located at a distance of seven kilometres and half from the town is Mount Suyang, which is above all famous for of its cataracts. The water of Mount Suyang falls down over cliffs of a height of 128 metres and a breadth of twelve metres into the depths of a picturesque little lake.

On the mountainside itself, there is an old fortification built in the Goryeo Dynasty that can be visited by tourists. Sights in Haeju are an old stone cooling house (also built in the Goryeo Dynasty) and a pagoda of five floors. Haeju is an important traffic junction; above all companies in the cement and chemical industry have set up their businesses there (Source of information: Wikipedia).

Since 1998, humedica has been sending relief shipments with a value of more than one million euros to the DPR of Korea. Besides food, seeds or special additional food these shipments also contain drugs, sanitary articles, medical equipment and every-day necessities.

Please support us with your personal contribution so that we will be able to help the people in this country also in future.

humedica e. V.
Donation reference “Famine relief North Korea”
Account 47 47
Bank Code 734 500 00
Sparkasse Kaufbeuren
SWIFT/BIC-CODE: BYLADEM1KFB
IBAN: DE35734500000000004747