North Korean Economy Watch

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

The cost of Bona Mugabe’s wedding on March 1, attended by the heads of state of South Africa, Zambia, and Equatorial Guinea at Mugabe’s private home in Harare’s plush Borrowdale suburb, cost $5 million.

Just after the wedding, plans leaked out that Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) government clandestinely signed North Korea, one of its old friends, to build two statues of Mugabe at an estimated cost of $5 million.

The statues were commissioned by the minister of local government, Ignatius Chombo.

One is a nearly 30-foot high bronze image worth $3.5 million to be placed in Harare; the other is a $1.5 million version to be placed in a $3.8 million museum to be built in Mugabe’s rural Zvimba home, in Mashonaland West. Building statues of leaders is something North Korea has considerable experience doing.

Read more about the story at Bloomberg and Bulawayo 24.

I have documented many of North Korea’s Africa projects on this web page.  See here.

Read the full story here:
Mugabe splashes $5m on N. Korea statues
Christian Science Monitor
Mxosili Ncube
2014-3-12

Pictured Above (Google Earth): The approximate borders of the Sinuiju Special Economic Zone.

According to Yonhap:

North Korea has joined hands with a Hong Kong-based company to develop the country’s northwestern border city of Sinuiju into a special economic zone, a North Korean official said.

Sinuiju, which borders China’s Dandong city, has drawn much attention from foreign investors for its geographical advantage as North Korea’s western gateway to China, Ri Chol-sok, the vice chairman of North Korea’s economic development committee, said in an interview in the March issue of Kumsugangsan magazine, a North Korean government mouthpiece.

“Now a joint development company has been established for the development of (Sinuiju) and is striving to win back lost opportunities,” said the North Korean official.

Hong Kong-based conglomerate Great China International Investment Groups Ltd. reportedly signed the deal with North Korea.

North Korea is also making efforts to lure foreign investment to other special economic zones, including one in the Rason area in the northern tip of the country, according to Ri.

The foreign company already has deep ties with the North, having joined the country’s project launched in January to renovate the eastern part of the capital Pyongyang.

The Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES) reported the following:

It has been reported that North Korea has established relations with a Hong Kong-based company with the goals of developing Sinuiju, a city bordering China in the northwest region of North Pyongan Province, into a special economic zone (SEZ). Vice Chairman of North Korea’s Committee for Economic Development Ri Chol Sok emphasized the nation’s efforts to attract foreign investors to the Sinuiju economic zone in an interview in the March issue of Kumsugangsan, a North Korean government magazine.

Vice Chairman Ri specifically mentioned that, in the past, Sinuiju garnered praise and attention from foreign investors due to its geographically advantageous location along the western border. Ri also announced the establishment of the Sinuiju-Great China joint venture development company, which plans to draw further interest and investment from abroad.

It is reported that the Sinuiju-Great China joint venture development company was created alongside a Hong Kong-based finance conglomerate known as Great China International Investment Groups, Ltd. (“Great China Groups”). Great China Groups has recently shown great interest in investing in North Korea and recently began the construction of East Pyongyang Commercial Street this past January.

Recent reports from other foreign media outlets have shown that Great China Groups had intentions to invest in the development of the Sinuiju region for some time, but Vice Chairman Ri’s announcement marks the first time that North Korean state media has officially recognized their joint development plans.

Meanwhile, the North Korean foreign publicity website Naenara announced that development of an additional economic development zone (EDZ) in North Pyongan Province along the Amnok (Yalu) River began on January 27 of this year. The Amnok (Yalu) River economic development zone will extend 6.6 square kilometers, with construction taking place in Ryongun-ri and continuing up to the Guri and Ojok Islands, where the North Korean border meets the city of Dandong and the Hu Mountain in China’s Liaoning Province.

North Korea plans to draw in tourists visiting China’s Hu Mountain to Ojok Island, where an “international services station” will offer food, entertainment, and tourist attractions. There are also plans to develop a modern agricultural sciences research complex on Guri Island that will specialize in flower and vegetable production.

North Korea specifically pushed for this location for the development of the Amnok (Yalu) River economic development zone — which will operate autonomously in Pyongan — due to its border location with China. In addition to its desirable geographical location, convenient transportation between the two nations will likely attract more attention from Chinese foreign investors, giving the Amnok (Yalu) River EDZ a higher chance of success compared to other economic development zones.

Investments reaching upwards of 240 million USD (approx. 260.3 billion KRW) make the Amnok River EDZ the largest in scale among the 13 total development areas.  In terms of actual size, however, the largest economic development zone in North Korea is the Shinpyong tourist development zone (8.1km²), located in North Hwanghae province.

Apart from the EDZs in the North Pyongan region of Sinuiju, the central government has announced their plans to push forward with two other special economic zones. The Hwanggeumpyong and Wihwa Islands SEZ was announced in June 2010, and in November of last year, plans were revealed to develop an additional special economic zone in the Sinuiju region.

All the economic development zones are listed here. Some people say there are 13 of them. Some people say 14 because they consider the Sinuiju Special Economic Zone an economic development zone. I am in the 14 camp. There have also been at least three other zones proposed that did not make the final list. 

The Sinuiju Special Economic Zone was announced on 2013-11-21 (the same day as the other 13 EDZs were announced–though in a different article).

Besides the Sinuiju Special Economic Zone, the only other EDZ to have reportedly made any progress is the  North Hamgyong Provincial Onsong Island Tourist Development Zone.

Read the full story here:
N. Korean, Hong Kong firms to develop border city of Sinuiju
Yonhap
2014-3-12

According to Bloomberg:

How did North Korea become the conduit by which thousands of tons of old junk moved from the developed world into China’s bustling e-waste recycling industry?

As with any smuggling story, the tale starts with a prohibition. In this case, Chinese laws and regulations prohibit e-waste — most commonly understood as old, non-working electronics like laptops, monitors and mobile phones — from being imported into the country. The reasons are several, including a government interest in keeping used foreign goods from competing against new ones, and environmental concerns about how some of those goods are recycled. Nevertheless, China’s national-level environmental and customs authorities have long struggled to maintain those prohibitions against local ports and authorities — especially in south China — who view e-waste recycling as a good source of jobs, tax revenue, and used components to drive local industry. Of the several conduits through which e-waste has traditionally been smuggled, the most common and long-standing was over the Hong Kong-China border.

That all changed in February 2013 when — for reasons that are still unclear — Beijing announced “Green Fence,” a high-level crackdown on the import of prohibited waste and recycling exports, including old electronics. Nonetheless, here and there, imported old electronics still turned up in Chinese recycling facilities (I personally saw them).

The likely means, as described in state media after the North Korea bust, was convoluted. A Hong Kong “gang” allegedly received containers of used electronics from abroad. They arranged for them to be placed them on smaller ships bound for a “country in Northeast Asia.” The culprit’s identity is clear from the awkward phrasing. Criticism of North Korea in the Chinese press is exceedingly rare and -– needless to say — connecting the country to an e-waste smuggling ring qualifies as criticism. Were the country Japan, or even South Korea, it would have been named.

In fact, North Korea has long been rumored to be an e-waste recycling center. Since January 2008 a Chinese company based in Liaoning Province along the border has advertised for scrap to feed its e-waste recycling operations in North Korea itself. The facilities are located, according to the ad, in the port of Nanpo, and “take advantage of North Korea’s environmental policies and inexpensive labor resources.” There, the ad promises, prohibited e-waste can be dismantled and transformed into a product acceptable for export to China.

The smuggling ring was allegedly doing something similar, although its “transformed” e-waste clearly did not meet environmental standards. In North Korea the bulky e-waste was dismantled (steel cases would be removed from old desktop PCs, for example), segregated into marketable components like computer chips for re-use, and then sent to Dandong, a Chinese city and port on the Yalu River, directly across from North Korea. From there, the goods were trucked south, to recycling and re-use centers in Guangdong Province, a straight-line distance of roughly 1,800 miles.

Read the full story here:
Did North Korea Recycle Your Laptop?
Bloomberg
Adam Minter
2014-3-6

According to Yonhap:

North Korea’s fertilizer imports from China skyrocketed in January from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday, pointing to Pyongyang’s efforts to increase agricultural output.

The North brought in 35,113 tons of Chinese fertilizer in January, a huge increase from 2 tons from a year earlier, according to the data by the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI).

Such an amount is unprecedented for January, as the impoverished communist country used to buy a limited amount of fertilizer in winter, according to KREI experts.

The January figure is also two times bigger than the 17,416 tons for December, according to the data.

“Different from its previous pattern of buying fertilizer in spring, North Korea seems to be taking a very proactive move to secure fertilizer a long time ahead of its usual schedule. This means that the North is putting a priority on improving its farm output,” said KREI researcher Kwon Tae-jin.

It is in line with its leader Kim Jong-un’s policy goal of boosting food production, experts said.

In his New Year’s message, the young leader said all efforts “should go for agriculture … in order to build a strong economy and to improve the people’s livelihoods.”

Last year, Pyongyang bought a total of 207,334 tons of fertilizers from China, down by 18 percent from the previous year.

“This year, the trend is expected to be reversed given the January data and the fact that China has lowered duties,” Kwon added.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea’s fertilizer imports from China soar in Jan.
Yonhap
2014-3-4

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2014-3-3

For North Korea, anthracite exports are a major means of foreign currency earnings and the country’s top export item to China. Exports are expected to continue to rise this year.

China’s year-on-year import of anthracite from North Korea increased 39.7 percent (16.49 million tons) from the previous year, accounting for 41.5 percent of the total amount of anthracite import for China (39.66 million tons). North Korea has now surpassed Vietnam as the top exporter of anthracite to China.

Other than natural resources, North Korea has virtually no other major export commodities to offer. The recent standstill in inter-Korean economic cooperation and toughened international sanctions has made it difficult for North Korea to earn foreign currency. Thus, North Korea has pushed for a steady increase in its hard coal exports to China. North Korean anthracite is considered to be of relatively high quality, maintaining a higher unit price (10 USD/ton) than Vietnamese anthracite.

Currently, China’s steel industry is the largest consumer of the North Korean anthracite, with the main consumers being local steel companies in Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong Provinces, as they are geographically closer to North Korea and have easy access to shipping ports.

The market for North Korean anthracite is expected to expand. Since last year, the Chinese government began to implement wide-ranging air-pollution management measures. As a result, Chinese authorities designated the Hebei Province and the surrounding areas of Beijing and Tianjin municipalities as key areas to improve and control air pollution. With the help of allocated subsidies from the central government, local governments began to distribute hard coal briquettes to homes in farming villages. China’s major anthracite producing areas are in remote mountainous regions. So the demand for North Korean anthracite briquettes is anticipated to increase.

Late last year, the former head of the (North) Korean Workers’ Party Jang Song Thaek was accused, charged and executed for, among other “anti-state activities,” selling the country’s “precious [natural] resources” (presumably to China) at very cheap prices. But his execution does not appear to have made a significant impact on the anthracite trade between the DPRK and China. With China’s growing demand for North Korean anthracite, the export volume is expected to rise.

However, some argue that despite the growing demand North Korea’s coal production capacity is limited and will experience difficulties. Currently, North Korea has already suppressed significantly its domestic demand in order to meet the export volume. North Korea’s mining facilities are said to be old and badly in need of repairs, but large investments from Chinese companies that could be put toward this endeavor are reported to have dried up.

According to Yonhap:

 The U.N. food agency has provided emergency food aid worth US$3.2 million for children and pregnant women in North Korea earlier this month, according to a news report.

The World Food Program (WFP) has given the emergency funding assistance in February, Washington-based Radio Free Asia reported Thursday, citing a spokesman handling North Korean affairs.

The U.N. body has said earlier that it will close five out of its seven factories within this month that produce nutritious biscuits due to a lack of funding, the report said, amid an apparent donor fatigue over North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

On Thursday, North Korea fired what appeared to be four short-range ballistic missiles off its southeast coast, South Korean officials said, in a suspected reaction to U.S.-involved military exercises in the South that Pyongyang condemns as a rehearsal for invasion.

The WFP said in November that food production in the North is estimated to have been around 5.03 million metric tons in 2013, up 5 percent from the previous year.

Still, the food security situation remains serious, with 84 percent of all households having borderline or poor food consumption, according to the U.N. food agency.

A few days ago, a report titled “Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO) 200532 “Nutrition Support for Children and Women” in DPR Korea” was released with additional data.

Read the full story here:
WFP gives US$3.2 mln in emergency aid to N. Korea: report
Yonhap
2014-2-28

Two officials at the State Economic Development Commission have apparently been reinstated following their removal during the purge of Jang Song-thaek. According to Yonhap:

Kim Ki-sok and Kim Chol-jin, chief and deputy chief of the North’s State Economic Development Commission, had been sacked in connection with the purge and execution of leader’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December last year, but have been reinstated after undergoing an “ideology re-education,” the source said on the condition of anonymity.

“Kim Ki-sok and Kim Chol-jin were forced to resign from the posts after being involved in the case of Jang Song-thaek, but reinstated as they were considered not so close to Jang,” the source said.

After reinstatement, Kim Ki-sok, chief of the North Korean commission, made secret visits last week to Beijing and Shenzhen, southern China, during which he met with Chinese business people, according to the source.

Here is what the Choson Ilbo had to say:

A source in Beijing said Kim visited Beijing, Shenzen, Singapore and Malaysia last week. He met with businesspeople interested in developing North Korea’s special economic zones.

Kim also met with Chinese officials who had experience in developing special economic zones, the source said. In Singapore, Kim discussed the development of a tourism zone in Wonsan.

But he apparently returned empty-handed.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say North Korea is poised to push for more economic exchanges with China after elections for its rubber-stamp parliament on March 9. It will form a new team to handle the initiative now that Jang and his associates have been purged.

Prime Minister Pak Pong-ju or Ri Su-yong, a deputy department chief in the Workers Party who used to manage the coffers for former leader Kim Jong-il, may pay an official visit to China, according to sources.

Read other posts about the State Economic Development Commission here.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea reinstates key officials on economic projects with China
Yonhap
2014-2-26

The UN Office of Inspector General has published a report on the UN World Food Program’s activities in the DPRK throughout 2012. You can read it below (PDF):

Internal Audit of WFP Operations in The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Office of the Inspector General Internal Audit Report AR/14/01

Below are the key results of the audit given in the summary:

Positive practices and initiatives
4. A number of positive practices and initiatives were noted, among them, the stable working relationship between WFP and the counterpart at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government National Coordinating Commission (NCC), with regular weekly meetings at the WFP office; the DPRK Government authorized international Korean speaking staff to work in the WFP Country Office; and the change in the Country Office fundraising strategy yielded commendable results.

Audit recommendations

5. The audit report contains one high-risk and 14 medium-risk recommendations. The high-risk observation arising from the audit was:

6. Programme Implementation: The Country Office did not prioritize the most vulnerable in instances of pipeline breaks nor provide assistance in accordance with the obligations outlined in the project document.

Management response

7. Management accepted all the recommendations. Work is in progress to implement the recommendations
8. The Office of Internal Audit would like to thank managers and staff for the assistance and cooperation accorded during the audit.

The report has been covered by Fox News.

Here is commentary by Stephan Haggard.

According to the Joong Ang Ilbo:

A South Korean civic group sent a large shipment of food aid for North Korean infants, a major humanitarian assistance approved by the Park Geun-hye administration.

A ship carrying 26,000 cans of powdered milk totaling 22.1 tons departed for North Korea yesterday from Incheon Port, west of Seoul. The amount can feed about 13,000 babies for a month, according to the civic group 1090 Peace and Unification Campaign, which is in partnership with the JoongAng Ilbo.

The milk, worth about 340 million won ($316,868) wholesale, will arrive in Nampo, a western port city of North Korea, via Dandong, a port in China.

“At a moment of transition in inter-Korean relations with the ongoing reunions of separated families, it is a meaningful event to send the powdered milk for North Korean babies,” Lee Young-sun, chairman of the group and a former president of Hallym University, told the JoongAng Ilbo.

Along with medicine, powdered milk is needed in the North. Despite frosty relations with Pyongyang over the past few years, Seoul has frequently approved shipments of powdered milk or medicine by civic groups in South Korea. The Ministry of Unification, which is in charge of the approvals, green-lighted the civic group’s plan to send the milk on Friday.

President Park Geun-hye emphasized the need for humanitarian assistance to North Korea at a New Year’s press conference on Jan. 6.

Read the full story here:
Powdered milk sent to hungry babies in North
Joong Ang Ilbo
2014-2-25

According to Yonhap:

Trade between South and North Korea fell to its lowest level in eight years in 2013 due to their strained relations, data showed Sunday.

Inter-Korean trade reached US$1.15 billion last year, down a whopping 41.9 percent from the previous year’s $1.98 billion, according to the data from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

South Korean exports to the North nose-dived 41.1 percent on-year to $531.8 million, with imports from the communist country sinking 42.5 percent to $617.2 million.

The 2013 inter-Korean trade volume was the lowest since 2005, when the figure came to $1.06 billion.

…

In contrast to the plunge in trade with South Korea, the North’s trade with China, its chief ally and largest benefactor, jumped 10.4 percent on-year to a record high of $6.54 billion last year, according to the data.

Between 2009 and 2014, North Korea’s trade volume with China, the world’s second-largest economy, had been growing an annual average of more than 40 percent, the data showed.

According to the Choson Ilbo:

Inter-Korean trade fell to 18 percent of the North’s trade with China, the lowest since 2005.

…

South Korea’s imports of textile goods and electric and electronic products from the North fell 45 percent and 43 percent, while the North’s imports of mineral and textile products from China increased 15 percent and 33 percent.

Of course inter-Korean trade was down due to the DPRK’s closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC). Once the complex was reopened, trade began to recover.

More on China-DPRK trade in 2013 here.

Read the full stories here:
Inter-Korean trade hits 8-year low in 2013
Yonhap
2014-2-23

N.Korean Trade with China Grows
Choson Ilbo
2014-2-24