North Korean Economy Watch

KCNA
3/24/2006

A commissioning ceremony of the Dock No. 2 of the Ryongnam Ship Repairing Factory took place on the spot on Friday. With the building of the large computer-aided dock capable of repairing tens of thousands of tons of several ships simultaneously at the factory the capacity of ship repairing has remarkably increased and firmer material and technological foundations have been laid to develop the shipping industry of the country as required by the new century. A message of thanks sent by the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea to officials and builders of the Ministry of Land and Marine Transport who performed great labor feats in the construction of Dock No. 2 was conveyed at the ceremony. The message said that the officials and builders of the ministry who turned out as one true to the behests of President Kim Il Sung on further increasing the capacity of the factory and the militant tasks of the WPK performed the great labor feats in completing the construction of Dock No. 2 in a big and bold way with their own efforts in a short span of time.

It highly appreciated the officials and builders of the ministry for displaying intense loyalty to the Party and the leader and patriotic devotion and successfully building Dock No. 2 as a monumental edifice of the Songun era.

Speeches were made at the ceremony.

Present there were Vice-Premier of the Cabinet Ro Tu Chol, Minister of Land and Marine Transport Kim Yong Il and other officials concerned.

Asia Times
Lora Saalman
2/8/2006

On January 10, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il traveled in a luxury train to China’s Guangdong province to sample socialist-flavored capitalism. Just a few months earlier, the North Korean Workers Party introduced reform measures granting foreign investors tax cuts and allowing them to sell goods produced in North Korea without tariffs.

For an economy that ostensibly issued halting economic reforms in 1984, these new measures constitute a revolution, albeit one with Chinese characteristics. In accordance with its giant neighbor’s model, North Korean economic reform is predicated as an alternative to the instability of political liberalization. Unforeseen social and political shifts are to be cushioned by financial solvency to keep the regime intact. With China’s assistance and unofficial aid, sustainable growth may one day be achieved in North Korea. Yet a darker side to North Korea’s economic awakening remains.

Kim Jong-il’s visit comes on the heels of accounts of North Korean money-laundering in Macau and the US decision last June and again in October to freeze the assets of various North Korean companies and financial institutions. While many of these firms are beyond the reach of US sanctions, implied misconduct has already led to runs on the North Korean-affiliated financial institution Banco Delta Asia in Macau.

As allegations swirl of money-laundering through counterfeit cigarettes and currency, a less-known story has emerged on British American Tobacco’s previously undisclosed four-year-old joint venture in North Korea. It presents the dilemma of doing business in a country in desperate need of revenue but with a poor track record of allocating resources to its people. This cautionary tale begs the question as to where exactly Pyongyang’s joint-venture profits are going.

For North Korea, which lacks many of the basic laws for financial transparency and good governance, capital investments are more than economically precarious. Shared contact information and dubious management practices among North Korean companies are ubiquitous.

Daesong-BAT is one of a handful of Western joint ventures in North Korea. The far-reaching tentacles of its North Korean partner illustrate the complexity of verifying the background and connections of any North Korean entity. Like many of its compatriots, North Korea’s Sogyong General Trading Corp (Sogyong) boasts circuitous and often indirect ties to entities engaged in proliferation, international trade, shipping, and money-laundering. These indicators point to larger concerns as to whether joint ventures, particularly Western ones, can be manipulated by North Korea for illicit financing of the regime or even to sustain its alleged WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs.

Joint ventures and front companies
In establishing Daesong-BAT, British American Tobacco teamed up with Sogyong General Trading Corp, a Pyongyang-based state trader best known for its carpet exports. Sogyong, however, also exports such products as handicrafts, furniture and agricultural produce, while importing machinery, electronics, fishing tackle, chemicals and fertilizer. It is not uncommon for North Korean state-run enterprises to deal in everything from machinery to fishing tackle. Yet eclectic product lists make trade in illicit drugs and weapons all the more difficult to track. Cigarettes are just one more product in the Sogyong export-import pantheon.

North Korean company product lists also rarely convey their full range of trade. Seemingly innocuous industries are often manipulated as front companies. Last year, for example, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) listed what appeared to be an innocuous North Korean food manufacturer, Sosong Food Factory, for its participation in nuclear, missile, chemical and biological-weapons proliferation. Cigarettes, like food, have been used at times to mask the real objects being transferred. In one case, Japan in 2002 seized a Chinese vessel and found that the declared store of cigarettes on board actually contained drugs thought to have come from North Korea.

While not as licentious as drug or human trafficking, even the black-market trade of cigarettes could have a tangible impact on North Korea’s financing, as seen in Eastern European illegal cigarette rings. These factors highlight the danger of taking a North Korean food or even carpet manufacturer at face value.

North Korea’s network
Among the elements of obfuscation, the company name Daesong-BAT merits attention. Rather than combining or modifying the titles of the two partner companies to form Sogyong-BAT, Daesong-BAT combines British American Tobacco’s acronym with a name that could either point to North Korea’s Daesong district or Daesong General Trading Corp (Daesong). If it turns out to be the latter, Japan and other governments have prominently featured Daesong for its ties to missile and nuclear proliferation.

Incidentally, Daesong maintains one of the most extensive and convoluted North Korean networks, with more than 10 subsidiaries. It also is suspected of falling under Bureau 39, which earns foreign currency for North Korea. A direct connection between Daesong-BAT and the sinewy Daesong franchise has yet to be established but, as illustrated below, nothing is clear cut in North Korean business relations.

Because of the lack of transparency and convoluted nature of North Korean companies, contact information often serves as the first stencil for tracing overlap between industries. In the case of Daesong, the US Central Intelligence Agency’s Open Source Center follows the use of the same fax number to establish potential business and branch linkages. If the same logic is applied to Sogyong, another pattern emerges. Sogyong shares common fax numbers with at least two companies, Korea Foodstuffs Trading Corp (Foodstuffs) and Korea Kwail Trading Corp (Kwail). These companies in turn share fax numbers with nearly 100 companies in North Korea.

Among North Korean firms sharing contact information with Sogyong-linked entities, Japan’s METI and official European export monitors have listed at least six as end-users associated with North Korean WMD programs. In October, the US government targeted one in particular, Korea Ryonha Machinery Joint Venture Corp (Ryonha), freezing its assets under US jurisdiction and placing it on the US Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list. Ryonha is a prime example of the complex web of North Korean subsidiaries. Last June, the US Treasury Department also targeted the assets of its parent company Korea Ryonbong General Corp, formerly known as Lyongaksan, which heads five other US-designated entities.

Ryonha is not an aberration among companies converging with Sogyong. Among other Foodstuffs and Kwail-connected entities, Korean company databases list Korea Pyongyang Trading Corp as a distributor of methane gas derived from animal excrement. Apparently, effluent is not its only fetid source of income. The Japanese government has listed the very same company, along with subsidiaries of two other firms tracing back to Sogyong, namely Korea Ryonhap Trading Corp and Korea Jangsu Trading Corp, for nuclear, missile, chemical and biological weapons proliferation.

Proliferation networks may not be the only mechanisms at Sogyong’s fingertips. Contact information also links the two Sogyong-connected associates with at least four North Korean financial institutions. Among these, Koryo Bank and Korea Joint Bank have alleged ties to the now-infamous Banco Delta Asia in Macau. Banco Delta Asia’s own purported involvement in counterfeit-currency distribution and counterfeit-cigarette smuggling does not bode well for Daesong-BAT, no matter how convoluted their connections. Banco Delta Asia may have three degrees of separation between it and Sogyong, but in North Korea’s fishbowl of finance this does not preclude cooperation.

Banco Delta Asia is also reported to maintain a close business relationship with Macau-based Zokwang Trading, which its own vice general managing director claims is a part of North Korea’s Daesong General Trading Corp. Daesong, as mentioned earlier, has a pervasive proliferation record. It also has reported links to Changgwang Sinyong Corp (Changgwang), which has been repeatedly sanctioned by the United States for its missile-proliferation activities and sales to Iran and Pakistan. Zokwang in turn deals in missiles and nuclear-power-plant components, all the while maintaining a partnership with the notorious Changgwang. Combined with Sogyong’s branch in the joint \-venture hub Shenyang, China, even indirect ties to Macau suggest that Sogyong has the ability to tap into proliferation, industrial and financial networks in China and beyond.

Proliferation, industry and finance mean little without the means to transport goods and technology. Sogyong-associated entities Foodstuffs and Kwail share fax numbers with North Korea’s national airline Air Koryo, which has also been cited by official European monitors for proliferation. A 2003 Far Eastern Economic Review article even named Air Koryo as the transportation mechanism for Daesong’s suspected military assistance to Myanmar. Sogyong’s own shipping vessels Sogyong 1 and 2, which were detained in Japan on safety violations in December 2004 and January 2005, complete the final leg of the contact-linked proliferation, financing and shipment triangle. This network belies a much more intricate set of alliances than the domestic-consumption-based joint venture touted by British American Tobacco and Sogyong General Trading Corp.

Standards of business conduct
British American Tobacco’s website advocates transparency in international business and laudably eschews bribery, corruption, illicit trade, and money-laundering. In October, BAT executives further contended in The Guardian that the company’s North Korean cigarette joint venture fuels only domestic consumption, not exports to China or elsewhere. In spite of these reassurances, BAT is no stranger to the dangers of black-market cigarette production and transshipment. A February 2000 article in The Guardian even accuses BAT of complicity, by knowingly allowing illicit smuggling of its cigarettes to occur.

In the case of Daesong-BAT, British American Tobacco officials have admitted to knowing little of the company’s North Korean joint-venture operations. Ominously, BAT has stated that an unnamed Singapore division controls its North Korean joint venture. Lack of oversight combined with a dubious North Korean offshore mechanism for managing an ostensibly domestic industry raises significant warning signs. The incestuous relationship between state-run North Korean entities that share fax numbers of companies and banks listed for WMD procurement and money-laundering through counterfeit tobacco should also elicit concern. These are not simply dilemmas for British American Tobacco, but pose challenges to any companies forming joint ventures in North Korea.

Economic integration, as in China’s case, may bring North Korea more into step with international norms and standards. Ironically, engagement that is likely to lead to greater future transparency may also be manipulated for North Korea’s short-term illicit gains.

In 2003, the British government pressured BAT to close down its cigarette factory operations in the military dictatorship of Myanmar because of concerns over that country’s lack of human rights. Given the legion of obstacles impeding transparency in North Korea, BAT and other Western firms could be contributing to the worsening of more than human rights. They could be aiding and abetting illicit North Korean financing that is alleged to fuel Kim Jong-il’s slush fund and WMD programs.

According to Financial Express:

North Korea’s grain production rose 5.3 per cent to 4.54 million tonnes in 2005, helped by better harvests and fertilizer shipments from South Korea, South Korean data showed today.

The 2005 harvest was still far short of the impoverished country’s annual demand, estimated at six million tonnes, South Korea’s unification ministry said in a report. North Korea received 500,000 tonnes of rice from South Korea last year, together with humanitarian food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) and other international agencies.

UN’s food aid to North Korea, however, ended on December 31 after Pyongyang said it no longer needed emergency shipments from international agencies.  Instead, Pyongyang called for long-term development assistance to end its chronic food shortages. But some experts regard the shift to development-oriented assistance as a tactic to dodge the WFP’s request for transparency in food distribution. 

North Korea, the ‘Sopranos’ state
Asia Times
By Todd Crowell

When US Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow recently called North Korea a “criminal regime”, he was not speaking metaphorically. He was not talking about the North’s abysmal human-rights record, illegal missile sales or efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

No, he was talking about crime – as in counterfeiting US banknotes and cigarette packages, money-laundering and drug-trafficking. These issues have suddenly risen to the forefront of Washington’s agenda and become a major stumbling block in the renewal of the six-party nuclear-disarmament talks.

In September, Washington named Macau’s second-largest bank, Banco Delta Asia, as being “a willing pawn for the North Korean government to engage in corrupt financial activities through Macau”. It said senior bank officials were working with Pyongyang “to accept large deposits of cash, including counterfeit US currency, and agreeing to place that currency into circulation”.

In mid-December, the US Treasury Department issued a formal advisory concerning North Korea’s illegal activities and cautioned US financial institutions to take “reasonable steps to guard against the abuses of their financial services by North Korea, which may be seeking to establish new or to exploit existing account relationships”.

It was reported this month that a delegation of agents from the US Secret Service, which is responsible for counter-counterfeiting as well as protecting the life of the president, will travel to Seoul to meet with South Korean authorities over counterfeiting. Visits of this nature are not usually broadcast in such a public fashion.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang says it won’t return to the six-party talks unless the US lifts restrictions against its financial institutions, including those directed at eight state-owned trading companies that Washington cited in October as being involved in weapons trafficking, especially banned missile technology.

Rumors of North Korean counterfeiting and drug-trafficking have been circulating in Asia for years. Anyone who lived in Hong Kong for many years has heard them from time to time. North Korean companies have a long history of operating in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau, which for decades served the regime as a key window to the outside world.

The Zokwang Trading Co was considered Pyongyang’s de facto consulate in Macau, and the relationship between Zokwang and Banco Delta Asia is no secret. As far back as 1994 the bank found thousands of bogus US$100 bills allegedly deposited by a North Korean employee. The director of the Zokwang Trading Co was held and questioned, but no charges were pressed.

There have been several more recent instances of alleged North Korean counterfeiting.

Last April, the Japanese media reported that a hundred or so fake $100 bills were found among a stack of used currency aboard a North Korean freighter that called at a Japanese port in Tottori prefecture. The captain was reported telling police, “We were asked to bring the money to Japan so that the money could be paid for cars and other items.”

Also in April, a large stash of bogus notes was uncovered in South Korea. The Chosun Ilbo, which reported the story, did not say where or under what circumstances the money was found, though it went into great detail over the quality of the notes and quoted experts as saying it was “highly likely” they came from North Korea.

In August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported two “sting” operations in the US, colorfully described as Operation Royal Charm and Operation Smoking Dragon. The US government indicted 59 people on charges related to smuggling counterfeit US currency, drugs and cigarettes into the country. The announcement did not specify their origin, but other accounts have speculated that they came from North Korea.

David Asher, head of the US administration’s North Korea Working Group, published a lengthy essay in mid-November in which he described what he called “an extensive criminal network involving North Korean diplomats and officials, Chinese gangsters and other organized crime syndicates, prominent Asian banks, Irish guerrillas and a KGB agent”.

“North Korea is the only government in the world today that can be identified as being actively involved in directing crime as a central part of its national economic strategy and foreign policy … in essence North Korea has become the Sopranos state – a government guided by [Korean] Workers Party leaders, whose actions attitudes and affiliations increasingly resemble those of an organized-crime family more than a normal nation.” The Sopranos is a popular US television series about an organized-crime family.

But why is Washington suddenly pushing decades-old suspicions at this particular time? In September, Christopher Hill, the senior US negotiator at the six-party talks, announced a breakthrough in the negotiations. North Korea had agreed in principle to disarm in exchange for recognition and aid. That same month the Treasury Department issued a warning against dealings with the Macau bank.

In October came the sanctions against the eight North Korean trading companies. Also in October, Vershbow arrived in South Korea, and the new US ambassador quickly developed a reputation for making provocative statements. In November, the six-party talks quickly foundered on Pyongyang’s demands to lift sanctions.

No doubt American officials would solemnly swear they are motivated by a desire to protect the integrity of the US currency and nothing else. But even if the allegations are substantially true, which probably is the case, isn’t this really penny-ante stuff set against the much larger issue of North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program?

None of the other participants in the six-party talks has expressed any public concern about Pyongyang’s crimes. That includes Japan, which not only is supposedly the target of counterfeit money but also is on the receiving end of drugs manufactured in North Korea. (Japanese estimate that nearly half of the country’s illegal drug imports originate from there.) Yet it has said nothing.

Last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry was forced to deny a report printed in the South Korean media that its government had found evidence of North Korean money-laundering in Macau. “China has never indicated that the government had confirmed North Koreans using Macau for money-laundering,” the ministry statement said.

Vershbow has likened North Korea to Nazi Germany as being only the second state-sponsored counterfeiter. He was referring to an operation whereby concentration-camp inmates forged millions of US dollars and British pounds to disperse in England in an effort to ignite inflation there and harm their enemies’ economies.

Yet the highest figure I have seen for the North Korean counterfeiting is the $45 million (over a decade) reported in the Washington Times, which is nothing set against the vast sums of dollars sloshing around Asia. Indeed, I’ve never heard even a whisper that North Korean counterfeits were affecting world currency markets or the value of the dollar in the slightest way.

It’s hard not to believe that the US administration is again listening to more hardline elements after a brief ascendancy of the “realists” in the State Department. Their purpose is to neutralize the talks (how does a nation negotiate with a criminal gang, after all?) and shift the issue away from nuclear disarmament back to the nature of the regime – with the ultimate objective of toppling that regime.

Todd Crowell comments on Asian affairs.

According to Han Young Jin, Reporter, Defector from Pyongyang
in the Daily NK:

Interview 1:
Kang Min Jun (pseudonym, age 65), a former executive of “Keumgang Jewelry Processing Co.”, a North Korea-China state cooperative factory asserted that Kim Jong Il’s visit to China is a mere gesture.

“I participated in the National Economic Sector Officials Seminar held in Pyongyang, and it was before the 2002 7.1 Economic Measure was announced. The central party officials who came to educate us said, “Reformation and liberalization does not fit into our revolution reality so do not expect it to happen.” Unless the North Korean regimes changes, reformation and liberalization will remain as a dream,” Kang said.

“After his 2001 visit to China, Kim Jong Il praised China’s changes calling it, “heaven and earth reversed” and called on three hundred professors and experts from Pyongyang People’s Economy University and Wonsan Economics University and made them visit China and study economics. They came back and during their discussion for reformation, their study was abandoned due to the four principles the Party insisted never to be violated.”

The four principles Kang presented are as the following.
1.  Planned economy must never be abandoned.
2.  Private ownership by the people cannot be permitted.
3.  Liberalization of individual economy must not be allowed.
4.  The Public Distribution System (food distribution system) must not be abandoned.

Interview 2:
“Whenever he is in trouble, Kim Jong Il makes an event. Right now, Kim Jong Il is in a deep trouble. Nuclear issue, counterfeit issue, Banco Delta Asia fund freeze, human rights issue, food issue and all the problems are now come together. The only way to solve these problems is siding with China. If North Korea is determined to reform, it could be have just made foreign investment attraction policy instead of making a trip all the way to China.”

Daily NK
Kim Young Jin
1/13/2006

The North Korean people feel they have reached a limit in enduring daily hardships.

The North Korean defectors recently found in China all say, “There is no other way to live unless (North Korea) opens up.” They are “tired of living.”

Last October, the North Korean state officially announced a restart of the food distribution system. It requested the halt of food aid from the WFP and demanded for a withdrawal of international rescue NGOs in Pyongyang.

However, the North Koreans who escaped to China testify that the empty promise for the good distribution system was never fulfilled.

Hur Chul Min who defected from Musan said, “They said they will distribute food starting in October, but all I got was 9 kg of corn in November.” Hur, who was a miner, must have received 900g of corn per day, which makes 27kg a month according to regulations. However, he received enough for only ten days.

The North Korean state last year put out a slogan saying, “Farming Prioritization” and the same slogan prevails this year. Hur says the only reason why the state returned the food distribution system is to earn loyalty from the people. The North Korean people already know all about it.

The following is the interview with Hur in full text.

– How is the situation of food distribution for Musan Mine this year?

On the October 10 holiday, they gave all the companies an order to make food cards. They said because farming this year was successful, they will give us food. They gave us food for ten days in November, but after that, they kept telling us to wait because there is not enough of food at the distribution centers. Those who started working again because the state promised food distribution, started to talk again, that they will only get “word distribution.”

– What do you mean by “Word distribution”?

It means they only give us words instead of food. People were deceived so many times that they no longer believe in the government promises.

– Did the government control of the people intensify?

The National Security Office orders the people to go to work. The people’s committee conducts family counts and reports the people who do not work. It is better to disappear from home. If you don’t come to work for two days, the mine patrol come to your home to take you. Even when you eat gruel, they demand you to work.

– How long did you work at Musan Mine?

I worked for 18 years. There was a lack in the workforce, so when I graduated middle school, I was “levied” to the mine by the state. None of my peers could go to the military. Starting in 1994, we did not receive any wages. Until 1997, we lived on grass. Starting in 1998, people started to sell things, and found ways to survive.

– Is it true that the farming last year was a success?

I do not know because I worked in a mine. After they ordered the “farming prioritization” policy, people were not allowed to stay jobless. Those who were selling things were forced to work. The road patrol caught those who hitchhiked to do their business. Those without travel permits were taken to the farms to pull out weeds.

– Did the situation improve after the 7.1 Economic Management Measure?

Immediately after the government implemented the 7.1 Economic Management Measure in 2002, the wages increased instantly. At the time my status was a level 4 technician, so I received 2,500 Won ($1.25) a month. Those who had level 6 status received 4,500 Won ($2.25). It made everyone happy at first. However, in less than two months, the price of goods increased more than 50 times.

Rice that used to cost 70 Won ($0.035) per kilo was now 1,200 Won ($0.6) per kilo. Meat enough for a meal cost more than 2,000 Won ($1). Wages were not given on time. They told us to consider the wages not given to have been saved, and gave us a ticket. They said, once the production takes place, they will give us the accumulated wages. But we never received them. Actually, after taking out support fees for the People’s Army and health insurance fees, there isn’t much left anyway. If you don’t have your own business, you will die.

– Have you ever received rice from South Korea?

I saw rice sacks that had “Republic of Korea” printed come into the Chongjin Port. However, for us, they are only cakes in pictures. They took all of them to the military in three days. On a day like that, you have so much rice in the market. The price of rice drops dramatically and those who can afford it buy a lot of rice to store. Their intention is to sell it when the price increases.

Now the people know why they are so poor. Whenever people gather, they openly say they want reformation and liberalization to take place at last.

Daily NK
Shin Ju Hyun
1/10/2006

Korea Exchange Bank double Assurance

For the verification of the North Korean-made counterfeit dollars, the so-called “Super Note,” The DailyNK bought these counterfeit dollars and requested examination of them at the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB).

The above photos are of the “Super Note,” which the The DailyNK bought in Dandong, China. They were taken to the KEB on January 5th at 3 pm for examination and identified it as a “Super Note made in 2003.”

The following is the process of how The DailyNK obtained the counterfeit bills made in North Korea and requested examination of it at the KEB.

The DailyNK correspondent in Dandong, China, on January 2nd, was introduced to a businessman who does trade business between North Korea and China through an acquaintance. The DailyNK asked the businessman, Mr. Lee, working for K Trade Company to buy him some counterfeit dollar bills recently made in North Korea.

Mr. Lee smiled and said, “That is not a problem.” He said half a day would be enough for him to buy some counterfeit bills. The correspondent set an appointment with Mr. Lee for the next day.

The next day, the DailyNk was able to obtain the “goods.” From a wad of bills, he pulled out a $100 bill. It cost him $80. He said, “If you buy directly from a North Korean tradesman, it first costs $80 then drops down to $70 on the second call.”

“This is a dollar bill I got directly from a North Korean tradesman, and it is in good condition,” said Mr. Lee. “I was asked to do a favor to sell the dollar bills at $70 each.” According to Mr. Lee, if you meet the same North Korean tradesmen more than twice, they all ask you to do them the favor of selling counterfeit dollars.

Mr. Lee said in the areas where North Korean trade companies are located, such as Dandong, Changbai, and Tumen, daily counterfeit dollar exchanges are made. In Dandong, there is the Sinheung Trade Company run by North Korea’s National Security Agency and the ‘** base of 3000 Bureau (General Federation of Rear Services) run by the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces.

Mr. Shim, who accompanied the meeting added, “Besides counterfeit dollar exchanges, it is a well known fact that fake (Chinese) Yuan bills are circulated as well.”

North Korean Tradesmen, First Deals for Counterfeit Dollars, Second for Drugs

“The Chinese government seems to know about this. If the counterfeit money becomes a problem between North Korea and the US, then China will also decide to take a hard-line policy against the North Korean counterfeit Yuan,” said Shim. “After deals for the counterfeit money are made, then comes deals for drugs. Drug deals are made much more carefully.”

The correspondent mailed the “Super Note” to The DailyNK headquarters in Seoul on January 4th. The DailyNK reporters in Seoul visited Korea Exchange Bank on January 5th for examination.

On the afternoon of January 5th, Suh Taek Seok at the financial office sales department at the KEB headquarters said, “It is certain that the bill is a sophisticated Super Note.”

“Some Super Notes made in 2001 are often circulated, but 2003 bills are very rarely found in South Korea,” he added.

After the close examination, “Although at the basic level, the quality of paper and print technique is very complicated, this Super Note bill could be considered one of the most sophisticated ones to be found,” explained Suh.

“The Super Note made in 2003 were circulated only from October 2005, thus some of the banks out there with detection machines still could fail to verify them.”

“Counterfeit Money from the Early 80s”

Suh said, “Without knowing where the Super Note bills came from, it is difficult to predict in which country the bills were produced. However, if it is true that if the bills were produced in North Korea, the problem could become quite a sensitive matter.”

“Apart from the quality of the paper, for the $100 bill, where it says ‘UNITED STATES’ on the left side of the Franklin portrait, there are white lines on the letter “N” and the picture of the grapes under the eagles is not so clearly printed. There are many more differences between real and fake bills.”

It seems the way the counterfeit bills are circulated also varies. Kim Chan Goo, researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of Kyungnam University who was devoted to relations with North Korea for a decade since 1989 testified, “Eleven years ago when I visited Pyongyang, the guide asked me if I would like to $100 bill for 30 dollars. I bought it as a souvenir, and asked for examination at the KEB when I came back to South Korea. It was verified that it was a counterfeit.”

Kim still kept the bill as a souvenir. “There were many cases of South Korean trade/businessmen who were asked to buy and sell as a broker between the consumers and the North Korean tradesmen in Dandung. Looking back, it can be deduced that North Korea started counterfeiting dollars in the early 80s.”

Here is more commodity price information courtesy of Open Radio for North Korea:

Agricultural and houselhold commodities:
1) Rice
-Shin Eui Joo: The price rose from 850 won/kg (18th) to 900won/kg (31st)/ whole sale price: 620won/kg
-Bak Chun Gun: October: 1000won/kg, November 800won/kg (trading rice was banned in October with resumption of food distribution system, which caused the rising price.)
-Pyeongyang: Honammi 800won/kg Annammi 680won/kg

2) Corn
-Shin Eui Joo: 400won/kg (December)
-Bak Chun Gun: 350won/kg (November)

3) Pork
-Shin Eui Joo: 3,300won/kg (December)
-Bak Chun Gun: 3,500won/kg (November)

4) Beef: 7,000won/kg (Beef is seldom sold at markets, but was temporarily out in the black market for new year’s holiday season.)

5) Cooking Oil
-Shin Eui Joo: 2,300 won/kg (November)/Yellow Oil 
-Bak Chun Gun: 2,500won/kg (November)/Yellow Oil

6) Seasoning
-Same in the region of Shin Eui Joo, Sah Ree Won, Bak Chun Gun: 2000won/bag(200g)

7) Underwear
-Bak Chun Gun: Brassiere: 4,000~6,000won, Children’s underwear: 5,000~6,000won
-Shin Eui Joo : Underclothes: 10,000~15,000won/piece, 20,000~30,000won/set

8) Socks
-Bak Chun Gun: 500~2,000won/pair (socks for winter)

9) Shoes
– Bak Chun Gun: high quality: 15,000won, poor quality: 3,000~4,000won/ Handmade: 2,500won 

10) T.V
-Shin Eui Joo: the same as November

11) Price of house and rent
-Shin Eui Joo: One storied house (1 Room, 1 Kitchen): $600, Apartment (2 Rooms, 1 Kitchen): $1,500, Well-located apartment (3 Rooms, 1 Kitchen): $10,000~15,000(able to bargain), 100 Sq.m- apartment: $12,500 (90,000~100,000 Chinese Yuan)
-Sa Ree Won: 100 Sq.m apartment $8,750 (70,000 Chinese Yuan)
-Bak Chun Gun: One storied house (2 Rooms, 1 Kitchen): around $100, Three storied apartment: around $150~200

Footnotes:
1.  A middleman receives 10% of the purchase as compensation. If one moves to a purchased house, one needs to receive a certificate which records that you are allowed to live in the house from a police officer in charge of registration in the neighborhood, usually the payment is one mal(10du/15kg) of rice.
2.  Expense for making Kimchi(Bak Chun Gun): Chinese cabbage 200won/head, Red pepper powder 2500won/kg, garlic 3,000won/100heads, ginger 300won/kg, salt 350won/kg, sugar 1,000won/kg, salted anchovies 1,500won/kg, scallion is raised at home.  Approximately 40,000~45,000won is expended for making 150 heads of Kimchi (usually consumed with rice, and is made with pepper, scallion and salted anchovies), for family of four.

Local Fees and Markets:
1) Electricity- Bak Chun Gun: 10won/lightbulb, 70won for black and white TV (per quarter)

2) Water- Bak Chun Gun: flat rate of 200won per house (per quarter)

3) Tax on land – Bak Chun Gun: 200won/2.5 Sq.m (per month)

4) Payment for spot at markets (Bak Chun Gun)

5) Exchange rate for Renminbi and US dollar
Shin Eui Joo: 2,900won/$ (November 1: 2,715)/ Rinminbi 360won/yuan (November 1:320)/ 3600won/Euro

Footnotes:
1.  No payment at markets, but general tax is imposed. 20won/day for agricultural products, and tax for industrial products vary according to the goods.
2.  Spots in Markets are rarely traded. For people starting their business at the market, relationship with the manager is important. When business with the manager was successful, managers make a spot for them by making others’ spots smaller.

Health Care and clothing:
1) Medicine for cold and antibiotics (Bak Chun Gun)
-Medicine for cold: Chung Yeong Poong 10won/pill (Adults consume 2 pills)/ Antibiotics: Penicillin 100won per ampoule/ Distilled water: 30won
-Antibiotics: when one receives an injection of 1 ampoule of Penicillin mixed with distilled water, the doctor is paid 100won aside from the price of medicine.

2) Bribe paid for medical examination and basic treatment (Bak Chun Gun)
-5000won for releasing a medical certificate, 350won for 1 injection (ex, glucose 500g), 100won for Penicillin

3) Stationaries (Bak Chun Gun)
-Won Joo Pil( Ball Pen): 250won, Notebook (paper made of straw): 5won/20pieces, Hand-made bag in North Korea, 2,000~3,000won, Uniforms used to be purchased at a flat rate set by the government with a coupon, but uniform is seldom sold at a shop these days. People usually purchase fabrics of appropriate color and size, and hand made the uniforms. (official state rate for elementary school uniform used to be 1,500won)

Monthly tuition and expense (Bak Chun Gun) :
-No monthly tuition is officially required, but some parents give some money to the teachers privately and school requires the students to prepare various materials.
– Club activity: the students need to pay 5,000won every month. (If one participates in cell activity, he/she is exempted from external labor or social labor ).
– Monthly payment is 10 bundles of firewood/Iron 3kg/Vinyl 1kg/Rubber 1kg
– -Students who fail to bring the materials are returned home without being allowed into the class.

Electricity:
-Shin Eui Joo: same as November
-Bak Chun Gun: Electricity was provided throughtout all day despite frequent blackouts occurred in the summer. / Since the beginning of the winter, electricity was provided only between 10:30pm~ 4am due to poor supply. (Mostly, candles are used at night. Candles are 40won each).
–  Pyeongyang: electricity is provided for 24 hours, but blackouts occur often. Sometimes, 3~4 hours of blackout occur. 

Water Supply:
-In case of Bak Chun Gun downtown, water pipes freeze in the winter. People dig wells for water.
-In case of Pyongyang, peripheral area is provided with water only once or twice a week. (The time when water is supplied is not announced beforehand. People have to watch the faucet on all the time).

Railway system and transportation fee:
-The fare for train from Bak Chun~ Won San with a transfer at Gaema Highland (Where Pyong Buk Sun and Gang Won Sun meets) is 35won, but most of the officials at the station hide the tickets and sell them for 1,000won.
-In order to buy train tickets, one needs to make a reservation a day ahead and stand in line to buy the ticket on the day. However, honored soldiers, soldiers on service and school teachers have priority, and it is hard for common people to buy tickets.
-What is interesting is that a lot of people take the train without paying the fare when moving from Bak Chun Gun to Ahn Joo Gun by Shin Eui Joo-Gae Sung train. It is because no body checks the tickets in this block.

Cars, buses and car fare between major cities:
-Pyongyang: same fare of 5won for subway, train without track
-Bus between Bak Chun ~ Shin Eui Joo runs once a day, and the fare is 2,500~2,800won. Additional 1,000won needs to be paid for one luggage.
-Shin Eui Joo~Nampo/ Roundtrip, once a day, 10,000won
-Shin Eui Joo~Won San/ Roundtrip, once a day/ 12,000won (10,000won possible after bargaining)
-Shin Eui Joo~Sa Ree Won/ Roundtrip, once a day/ 12,000won (10,000won possible after bargaining)
Footnote: No departure time is designated. The train leaves when the train is full.

Lodging:
-Shin Eui Joo: Same as before. Some of the private inns are as well organized as hotel. Chinese Koreans usually use them, and it costs 5,000won per night.
-Bak Chun Gun: State owned inns lacked heating system and was filled with lice, which is why they rarely exist now. Individuals run lodging facilities now (similar to lodging at a private residence)/ they come out to the station in order to invite guests, and it costs 100won per night.

Expense for obtaining travel document:
-Travel document: it costs 10,000won to travel from Bak Chun to Pyeongyang (ten box of cigarettes branded “Cat”)/ if using other ways, 6,000won~8,000won (Jagangdo 7,000won/Chungjin 8,000won/Pyeongsung 6,000won)/ 500won from Bakchun to Shin Eui Joo (Within a province)
-Travel document is not supposed to cost any money, but Municipal adminisrative committee, county administrative committee and officials in charge of the process publicly asks for money/ Only expense for travel documents to Pyongyang is flat rate of 10,000won, and expense for other provinces differ by person.
-Travel document to cross the river: Valid for one month, and cannot be extended/ costs around $100~200, which is not much more than passport or visa. (more money paid, the document is more quickly issued)/ Fee for travel document to cross the river is set for 20,000won by the government.
-When Chinese citizen visited North Korea with the document, extension is only available with a cost of $100 a day. (When one has good relationship with people of National Security Agency or any other relevant organizations, he/she can pay $50 a day) Because of the fee, they rarely extend the document.
-Passport and visa: DPRK passport is valid for 2 months and Chinese visa is valid for 90 days (In North Korea, expiration date on DPRK passport is more important than that on Chinese visa)/ Extension can be made twice, but extension is rarely requested by anyone (Specific reason for extension needs to be provided, which is a lot of work)/ Also, certificate of health is only valid for 4 months, which means that the passport cannot be extended twice/ fee for issuance of passport is set by the government for 40,000won (Some people say 150,000won). But actual expense is $100~500, and the expense varies depending on the region, person (interpersonal skills, ability, relationship with others) and the waiting time to get the passport (1 month~1year)/ Passport is issued in 1~2 months with a payment of $500 for Pyongyang, and 2~3months with a payment of $300 for other regions. / DPRK passport is valid for 2 months, but it is actually issued 1 month after the issue date.
-When visiting China to visit relatives, applicants for passport and travel document to cross the river are classified separately. In case of crossing Yalu River, if the applicant intends to stay in Dandong Province (Dandong, Bongsung, Donggang, Gwanjun) they need to apply for travel document, and if they intends to go farther than Dandong Province and for example, visit relatives in Shenyang and Fushun, they need to apply for passport.
-A case of procedure to obtain travel documents to cross the river and visa (with purpose of visiting the relatives)
-Application and procedure -> Mid March, Fill out the application (Hand $200 to officials at the office of foreign works: Confirmation of the relatives at the office of foreign works, military security office, and military police office, confirmation by a chair of women’s committee, Approval from Provincial Police Office and National Security Agency) -> Issuance of travel documents to cross the river in the beginning of November -> Two-day education in the beginning of November (First day: Exhibition on battle against espionage/ Second day: special education by the deputy of military security offic / Lastly, write out the oath) -> entered China on 23 November

Price of a business spot at the market (Bak Chun Gun)
-In case of the market at Bak Chung Eup, they don’t have the price of business spots.

Food Distribution System
-Bak Chun Gun: Distribution was carried out twice in the beginning and the end of October/ Distribution was halted in November/ The amount distributed was 15kg and did not meet the assigned amount of 57kg/ Official amount: 700g for workers, 300g for housewives, 500g for 15 year old child, 400g for 13 year old child/ rice/other crops ratio is 3:7
-Pyongyang: Food distribution was not halted except for the three months period of April~June 2005./ The amount distributed is 485g(official: 700g) for workers, 300g for housewives, 200g for students (official amount 300~500g)/ ratio of rice and other crops was 5:5. The ratio was sometimes 7:3 when things are better than the usual/ The price was 36won for Annammi, 54won for Honam rice (received from South Korea)/ Price at Yangjungso(Place where rice is gathered) was 20won less than market price/ Everyone is supposed to purchase rice from Yangjungso, but because of poor quality of rice, some well-off people buy rice at market.
-Shin Eui Joo and Sa Ree Won is similar to Bak Chun Gun.

Events, accidents, things to pay attention to

1) Penalty for listening to foreign broadcasting or watching illegal recordings
Case1> There was a public trial and punishment in July~August 2004 for 5 people for watching illegal recordings at a conference room of Gun Management Committee of Bak Chun Gun, located in downtown. / The penalty was expulsion of the family of the involved party to the mountains.
Case 2> A person who sold and showed VCD in Pyongyang in November 2005 was arrested. During investigation, the person committed suicide using a string on his bag while the investigator was absent. Reason for the suicide was not to harm the rest of his/her family/In Pyongyang as well, when one gets caught while watching illegal recordings, the penalty is usually an expulsion.

2) Wire telephone and charge for phone calls
– Installation of wire telephone: $200 at Sa Ree Won and Bak Chun Eup, $300 at Shin Eui Joo for obtaining a phone number as well/ customer needs to purchase the wire separately
-User of private wire telephone: There are relatively a lot of users of private wire telephone at Bak Chun Eup because there are a lot of Returnees from Japan and traders. Among 120 households, there are 11 households with telephone./ When somebody want to use wire telephone in a neighborhood, around 500won is paid.
-Common people use telegram for communication. 10won is charged for one page, and .5won is charged for each additional word.

3) Others
-Bak Chun Gun: There was a rumor that private cultivation would be allowed starting from this year, but instead of private cultivation, a group farming was adopted. Each group pay the assigned amount to the government, and the rest was left for the individuals to take care of. However, the groups needed to take care of fertilizer and pesticides which caused decline of the yield/ Phrase including “Communism” is gradually decreasing (example, “Communist Ethics” was replaced with “Socialist Ethics” in textbooks for elementary, middle and high school. “Rice is Communism” was replaced with “Rice is Socialism” as well/General atmosphere is that people do not believe what government and the party says.

-Pyongyang: Broadcasting criticized the resolution on situation of human rights in DPRK at the UN, but it is heard that the criticism has caused side effects/ Many of the people think that the resolution must have been adopted because there is a problem of human rights in DPRK/People in Pyongyang are known to be unhappy with Kim’s regime but have no way to change it. So they try to be patient and endure.

Daily NK
Kim Young Jin
12/28/2005

The DailyNK has reported North Korean news vividly with the help of the voices inside North Korea during the year 2005.

North Korea expressed farming as ‘the major front line for the construction of socialist economy’ in the joint new year editorial at the beginning of this year. In fact, it has made every effort to relieve its famine by mobilizing a number of people to farming for the entire year. In October, it also announced to its people that it would resume its ration system that had long been stopped.

The DailyNK met a citizen of Chongjin City of North Hamkyeong Province to fully grasp the recent situation of North Korea as a whole at this moment of seeing the old year out and the new year in. The interview is presented in the format of 10 questions and answers. The reader is expected to feel the reality of North Korea in mid-December, 2005 by reading the interview.

1.  How does the ration system work?
Workers in Giupso (State Owned Enterprise) receive a ration twice a month, the total ration being 700g a month. The government designated that the price of unglutinous rice is 46 won, while that of corn is 28 won. Those housewives who can work but stay home can buy 300g for 620 won. Children and the elderly, who are not able to work, can buy cereals at the government designated prices.

In short, the government has adopted a double price system. However, those who are rationed receive rice mixed with miscellaneous cereals whereas those who pay 620 won get unmixed rice.

Factories and Giupsos are assigned the farmland of No.112, and they have to produce cereals the quantity of which is equal to two month’s ration. In October, people were fully rationed, but since November, they have not been able to be fully rationed. People without the farmland of No.112 partly received their rations.

Additional question: What is the farmland of No.112?

It is a part of a cooperative farmland which is difficult to cultivate. Every factory and Giupso is assigned one. If a Giupso is influential, it is usually assigned a fertile land. It is so named because the policy was established on either November 2nd, last year or January 12th this year. I don’t remember the date.

2. How do people obtain their food if they are not fully rationed?
They get cereals in black markets. Transferring cereals in large scale is strictly prohibited, but people are selling them to acquaintances or under the cover of a bribe. Trading a large quantity of cereals is stealthily accomplished in a private home. Restaurants are also forbidden to sell processed cereals.

The price of rice has not risen. It ranges from 800 to 820 won ($0.4-0.41). The price of corn is 300 won ($0.15) while that of potatoes is 150 won ($0.075). Because people in Chongjin City do not enjoy eating corn, it is cheap here.

3. How are farmers rationed, and how much is the government’s purchasing price of cereals?
The farmland of No.112 is divided by fertility. The worst class is the 12th. 1,500 won ($0.75) is collected from 9,917.4 square meters of 12th class farmland as a tax. It can be payed with corn. 1kg of corn is bought for 24 won($0.012).

I heard a squad leader of a cooperative farm located near Chongjin say, “Every person on my farm was supposed to receive the prize of some 17,000 won ($8.5) because the government sent the prize to the farm for good farming, but the farm has not given the prize out to the people, saying that it would be a better idea for the money to be used to buy trucks and farm equipment, and thus people are full of complaints. The farm distributes ordinary rations to the workers.

4. What are people’s reactions to the resumption of the ration system like?
Most people are pessimistic about it. They grumble, “We do not understand why the government does not sell cereals indiscriminately. It has just made things complicated.” On the other hand, those who do not have a means of making a living hope for the ration system.

5. Do you have something to talk about regarding companies and work place lives?
In former years, there were people belonging to the circle called ‘the rest’ in companies. These people could do their own business by giving some part of their profits to their Giupso. However, all people are required to come to the Giupso to work these days. If there are some surplus workers, they are fired.

Since it was said that every Giupso should ration its workers, those who are not able to do their own businesses, especially women, have made every effort to be employed by a Giupso.

Rich people are not interested in companies, but the poor are full of complaints because ‘the rest’ circle was eliminated. The poor are getting much more interested in job opportunities.

6. As far as I know, the rate of factory operation is 20% or so. Has there been any changes recently?
No, there is almost no change in the rate. Earning foreign money is active, but I’ve never heard that those factories that had stopped before resumed its operation, or that they changed their business category to be operative.

7. Can you come up with a concrete example that shows that the status of partisans is getting lower?
Factories and Giupsos are reluctant to employ partisans because it is difficult to lay them off. If one says he is a partisan during a job interview, he will probably be turned down. Non-partisans are definitely preferred.

8. Is the control over people getting tighter?
The control in matters of food is getting tight. Because controlling restaurants and processed cereals has been getting tighter, more and more stalls are being emptied in markets, and the price of stalls is decreasing. A stall 50cm wide and 1.5m long for selling apparel can be bought for 120,000 won ($60).

Food for a family of 4 members costs 120-130 thousand won ($60-65) a month. The family also has to spend money for housing and clothing.

Additional question: I heard that even though many people are moving from one place to another, and a number of people dare to complain, punishments are getting weaker and weaker. Can you give me some examples regarding that?

The security agents say that they no longer arrest blasphemers. They even say that they will enforce laws on the basis of scientific evidences. (Blasphemers refer to those who blaspheme the system of the Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il regime.)

Punishments for defectors, radio listeners, and other such crimes are considerably moderated.

A neighbor in his 70’s was arrested due to his acquaintance’ betrayal. He revealed that he had been listening to the radio, but he was just called names during the investigation and criticized publicly in front of a crowd of people. That was the punishment. Even though blaspheming is said to be forgiven, you cannot call Kim Jong Il’s name. Maybe it would be okay for you to say South Korea is rich.

Additional question: Recently, it has been reported that Kim Jong Il ordered that torturing be checked and human rights be respected. Have you ever heard from security agents such a story or instructions?

No, I’ve never heard that.

Additional questions: Because punishments are getting moderated, what kind of countermeasures do North Korea take to protect the regime?

The National Security Agency is said to employ and use many informants. It lets people watch each other. According to one of my acquaintances, those who have an experience of escaping from the North are especially encouraged to watch each other.

9. How is the electric power supply like?
Electric power is supplied for 3 to 4 hours a day from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Middle class people usually have both a black and white TV set and a color TV set. They use only batteries for the black and white TV. Electric power supply is poor for winter. It starts getting better in the spring and is best in summer.

10. Recently, North Koreans are said to widely use horse-drawn or cow-drawn carriages. Is that true?
They are widely used for carrying cargo. They are seen even in urban cities. Recently, individuals or Giupsos are trading cows. The price of a cow in black markets range from 400 to 700 thousand won ($200-350). Recently, the price for using such a carriage is determined in relation to the distance instead of the weight it should carry. 3 to 4km costs 2,000 won ($1), while anything more than 5km costs 3,000 won ($1.5). The weight of the cargo usually does not exceed 700kg.

If one uses a truck, he must pay for the fuel in addition to the fee. 1kg of diesel costs 2,000 won ($1).

Bloomberg
Bradley K. Martin
12/28/2005

A sign of North Korea’s fledgling moves toward a market economy can be found at the Pyongyang monument commemorating the 1945 founding of the Workers’ Party. Beneath a 50-meter-tall rendition of the party’s logo — a hammer, sickle and writing brush — sits a street photographer.

A handmade sign displays her price list and sample photos, mostly of groups of North Korean visitors, with the monument as background.

The photographer is one of countless sidewalk entrepreneurs – – most of them selling food and drink — who have set up shop in North Korea since 2002. Before that, they would have been hauled off to re-education camps for profiteering. In the late 1990s, North Korea’s Civil Law Dictionary described merchants as a class to be eradicated because they “buy goods from producers at a low price and sell them to consumers at a high price by way of fraud, deceit and spoils.”

Since then, the party newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, has quoted Kim Jong Il, who’s held supreme power since the 1994 death of his father, Kim Il Sung, as favoring profits under socialist economic management.

North Korea, one of the world’s last Stalinist regimes, has gradually begun permitting commerce. On a four-day visit to Pyongyang, the capital, in October — arranged and scripted by the government — a group of 17 Western journalists got a glimpse of the changes. Clean, new restaurants were packed with paying customers while the streets — almost empty in 1979 and only lightly traveled in ’89 and ’92 — bustled with bicycles, motorbikes and Japanese sedans.

Casino Pyongyang

In the state-owned Yanggakdo Hotel on an island in the Taedong River, a mostly Chinese clientele played slot machines, cards or roulette at the Casino Pyongyang. Since 1998, Macau billionaire Stanley Ho, through his Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau SARL, has invested $30 million in the casino, whose staff is also Chinese.

Now some investors from farther afield are joining pioneering Chinese and South Koreans in plunging into a country once so isolated it was known as the Hermit Kingdom. In September, Anglo- Sino Capital Partners, a London-based fund manager, said it had formed the Chosun Development & Investment Fund, which plans to raise $50 million for investments in North Korea.

“It’s the last virgin economy,” says Colin McAskill, 65, a director of Anglo-Sino and chairman of Koryo Asia Ltd., which is investment adviser to the new fund.

Natural Resources

Besides recent changes in the economic system, a 99 percent literacy rate and a minimum wage for workers in foreign-invested ventures of only $35 a month, McAskill says, he was drawn by North Korea’s rich natural resources — including iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, gold, nickel, manganese, tungsten, anthracite and lignite.

The fund will concentrate on North Korean companies that have been active internationally in the past, with track records as foreign currency earners, says McAskill.

He negotiated on behalf of North Korea with foreign bank creditors in 1987, when the country was unable to repay some $900 million in balance-of-payment loans that had enabled the regime in the 1970s to purchase Western industrial technology — Swiss watch-making machinery, for example — as well as such non-capital goods as 1,000 Volvo sedans from Sweden.

Oil Potential

The country’s petroleum potential lured Dublin-based Aminex Plc and its Korea-focused subsidiary, Korex Ltd., which in August announced the signing of a nine-year production-sharing agreement to explore and develop 66,000 square kilometers (25,000 square miles) of North Korean territory. The agreement covers areas in the Yellow Sea’s West Korea Bay and in the Sea of Japan as well as onshore.

While North Korea lacks proven petroleum reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the West Korea Bay in particular may contain hydrocarbon reserves, as it’s considered to be a geological extension of China’s oil-rich Bohai Bay.

More foreign investment may come, says Tony Michell, a Seoul- based consultant on North Korea. Michell, a 58-year-old Briton, says he has recently shepherded 20 senior managers of international companies, representing seven nationalities, to Pyongyang.

“They’re big players,” says Michell, declining to identify his clients by name or company. “They’re looking at everything, from services to manufacturing. They want to get the measure of the North Koreans and be ready if the six-party talks succeed.”

Six-Party Talks

The so-called six-party talks — between North Korea and China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. — are aimed at ending the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. In September, the six countries agreed on a statement of principles to govern further talks. It called for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, a peace treaty and economic cooperation in energy, trade and investment.

Seoul-based Hyundai Research Institute, an affiliate of the Hyundai Group, projected in September that a successful outcome to the talks would be worth as much as $55 billion to the economy in the North — and more than twice that in the South.

Optimism about the economy has boosted the prices of defaulted North Korean debt originally owed to hundreds of creditors, mostly European banks, which in the 1970s began meeting as a London-based ad hoc group to discuss restructuring options. In the 1990s, that so-called London Club turned a portion of the debt into Euroclearable certificates, securities that were denominated in Swiss francs and German marks.

The certificates are trading at about 20-21 percent of face value, up from 12 percent in 2003, according to London-based Exotix Ltd., a unit of Icap Plc, one of a few financial firms that make an over-the-counter market in them.

Excessive Optimism

The debt’s price has risen in the past on excessive optimism about the country’s future. In early 1998, the debt was trading at nearly 60 percent of face value amid rumors that North Korea would collapse imminently and be absorbed by wealthy South Korea, which would then make good on the entire outstanding debt.

That had not happened by the time of the crash later that year in global emerging-market securities, when the North Korean debt price sank to about 25 percent of face value.

Exotix estimates that North Korea owes the equivalent of some $1.6 billion in principal and interest to banks out of a total $14 billion in principal and interest owed globally to mainly communist and formerly communist countries.

Although a cease-fire was declared in 1953 in the war between North Korea and China on one side and the United Nations — under whose flag the Americans, South Koreans and others had fought — on the other side, no peace treaty has ever been signed.

The U.S. maintains sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act that restrict trade and financial transactions with North Korea — and apply to Americans and permanent residents of the U.S. and to branches, subsidiaries and controlled affiliates of U.S. organizations throughout the world.

China, Russia

North Korea’s flirtations with capitalism are belated compared with those of China and the former Soviet Union, which began opening their economies in the 1970s.

North Korea did pass a law legalizing foreign investment in 1984. The law, which permitted equity joint ventures between state enterprises and foreigners, attracted only $150 million in investment during the following decade, largely because investors were put off by the country’s poor roads, railroads, power systems and phone networks and by official interference in joint ventures’ recruitment, dismissal and compensation of workers, according to a 2000 thesis by Pilho Park, a postgraduate student at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.

Vietnam Example

In contrast, Vietnam lured $7.5 billion in investment in the first five years after it opened its economy to foreign capital in 1988, Park wrote.

Following the collapse of European communism in the early 1990s, North Korea opened the Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone on the northeastern border with China and Russia. A brief flurry of investor interest ensued and then fizzled out when a crisis over the country’s nuclear weapons program took North Korea to the brink of war with the U.S. and South Korea in 1994.

In the mid ’90s, catastrophic floods, combined with the collapse of the global communist system of aid and preferential trade, caused a severe energy shortage that crippled the economy. As much as 70 percent of manufacturing capacity went idle, according to the South Korean central bank.

Also in the mid ’90s, famine killed as many as 2.5 million North Koreans, by the estimate of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Food Insecurity

Since then, food aid from abroad, an absence of large-scale natural catastrophes and a 2005 harvest that was the biggest in 10 years have kept North Korea from the massive starvation that’s taken place elsewhere, including Niger, says Richard Ragan, North Korea director for the United Nations World Food Program.

Still, “the country faces chronic food insecurity,” Ragan says. “One of the things that happened with the food shortages is that marginal lands became less controlled. You see people trying to farm on some of the most inhospitable plots of land you could imagine.”

In October, steep, unterraced hillsides were plowed outside Pyongyang. The crops can then wash down, rocks and all, during rainstorms, harming water supplies and damaging farmland – fertility.

A second nuclear weapons crisis boiled up in 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of conducting a secret uranium enrichment program — to replace a plutonium program that it had frozen as part of a settlement of the earlier crisis.

Economic Rules

That same year, the regime proceeded with what then Prime Minister Hong Song Nam described as dramatic new economic measures, which helped bring arbitrarily set prices and foreign exchange rates closer to those prevailing on the black market.

The North Korean won consequently dropped to 150 won to the dollar in December 2002 from 2.15 to the dollar a year earlier. The official rate is currently about 170 won, while on the black market, one dollar can bring about 2,000 won.

The government also introduced pay incentives aimed at boosting worker productivity. The system is in operation at enterprises such as the Pyongyang Embroidery Institute, where some 400 women stitch elaborate pictures for framing and sale.

Employees who don’t perform up to expectations aren’t fired; they’re denied raises, says spokeswoman Woo Kum Suk. Unable to live on their minuscule basic salary, equivalent at black market rates to something over a dollar a month, non-performers eventually quit and go elsewhere, Woo says. Good workers can see their salaries raised as much as fivefold.

Consumers

“In my opinion, it’s good to have this system,” she says. “Although the government supplies things to us, sometimes there’s something more we want to buy.”

North Korea has some way to go before many investors rush in. According to a UN report, net investment inflow for 2003 — the most recent year for which statistics are available — was a negative figure: minus $5 million.

Currently the country is constructing a new special economic zone at Kaesong, just north of the South Korean border, where several small companies from the South already employ North Koreans to make clothing, footwear and household goods. Authorities declined to let Western reporters visit it, permitting only a glimpse from a highway bridge a mile away.

Those who are investing are taking a long-term view. Singaporean entrepreneur Richard Savage was looking at least five years into the future in 2001, when he formed a joint venture tree plantation with the Ministry of Foreign Trade. The company, Evergreen Kormax Paulownia Ltd., is 30 percent-owned by the government, which has assigned Savage 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) on a 50-year lease with an option to extend for 20 more.

Timber Business

Savage, 58, says he, family members, friends and a few other investors have put $3 million into the project so far. Savage says he hopes that by the time the paulownia trees mature — they grow as fast as 7 centimeters (2.85 inches) a day on his farm, and some may be ready for harvesting five years after planting — he’ll be able to sell the wood in a unified Korean market.

When the Northern economy takes off, the first beneficiary will be the building industry, he says. “That’s why I’m in timber,” he says, adding that his fallback plan is to sell the wood to China, Japan and South Korea.

It’s not the first venture in North Korea for Savage, who wears a cowboy hat and whose e-mail moniker is WildRichSavage. In 1994, he introduced North Korean officials to Loxley Pcl, a Thai telecommunications company. In 1995, an affiliate formed for the purpose, Loxley Pacific Co., signed a joint venture agreement with North Korea’s post and telecommunications ministry to create modern telecommunications in the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone. The venture earns about $1 million a year, Loxley Pacific Chief Financial Officer C.C. Kuei, 56, says.

Mining for Gold

North Korea’s 1992 Foreign Investment Law guaranteed that foreign investors’ shares of profits could be repatriated, a promise that’s now being tested by Kumsan Joint Venture Co., a gold mining concern that’s half owned by a Singapore-led group of Asian investors and half owned by Hungsong Economic Group, a large trading, mining and manufacturing group in Pyongyang that’s controlled by North Korea’s military.

Roger Barrett, a Beijing-based British consultant, has helped arrange financing and technology for Kumsan. Barrett, 50, introduced Kumsan to the foreign investors, whom he declined to identify.

The company used its investment to buy secondhand mining equipment from Australia in 2004 for the venture’s mine 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) above sea level near the city of Hamhung. In the first year the new equipment was used, Barrett says, the mine produced about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of gold, half of which the foreign investors took out of the country. He says doing business with North Koreans has proved to be absolutely normal. “It’s working very well,” he says.

Foreign-Run Bank

The business environment in North Korea is surprisingly welcoming, says Nigel Cowie, 43, a former HSBC Holdings Plc banker who was hired a decade ago by Peregrine Investment Holdings Ltd. to start North Korea’s only foreign-run bank.

When Peregrine collapsed in 1998, Cowie and the North Korean joint venture partner kept the local unit operating. He and three other investors bought Peregrine’s 70 percent stake in it from the firm’s liquidators in 2000. Cowie, who’s general manager of what’s now called Daedong Credit Bank, says the bank has about $10 million in assets and has only foreigners as customers, mostly Chinese, Japanese and Western individuals and institutions. Only North Korean-owned banks can do business with state enterprises and North Korean individuals.

Better Living Conditions

Living conditions for expatriates have improved significantly in the past three or four years, Cowie says over a meal of Korean barbecue in the capital’s Koryo Hotel. “For me, personally, it’s things like creature comforts, more shops, Internet, e-mail,” he says. While the Internet is available to foreigners, it is forbidden to most North Koreans.

Cowie says his biggest challenge at the bank comes from outside North Korea. In September, the U.S. Treasury Department barred U.S. financial institutions from dealing with a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, that it said had been “a willing pawn” in corrupt North Korean activities and represented a risk for money laundering and other financial crimes.

The bank and North Korea both denied the charges, but the Macau government took over the bank and announced it would provide no services to North Korea in the future. Cowie says the action tied up a big chunk of Daedong Credit Bank’s customers’ assets because Banco Delta Asia had been a main correspondent bank for North Korean banks.

The Treasury Department in October broadened its dragnet by ordering a freeze of the assets, wherever in the world the U.S. could assert its jurisdiction, of eight North Korean companies it suspected of involvement in proliferating weapons of mass destruction.

`WMD Trafficking’

The department explained its action in an Oct. 21 statement on its Web site: “The designations announced today are part of the ongoing interagency effort by the United States Government to combat WMD trafficking by blocking the property of entities and individuals that engage in proliferation activities and their support networks.”

North Korea sought to connect the Treasury actions to Washington’s position in the six-party talks. The country’s Korean Central News Agency, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, said on Dec. 2 that “lifting the financial sanctions against the DPRK is essential for creating an atmosphere for implementing the joint statement and a prerequisite to the progress of the six-party talks.”

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. envoy to the talks, had said in a Nov. 11 press conference that the asset freeze wasn’t directly related to the talks.

Money Laundering Banned

Cowie says he doubts the U.S. action was intended to harm Daedong, which had already issued a manual prohibiting money laundering. He says he fears such U.S. actions could damp investor enthusiasm for North Korea. “It can cause the people doing legitimate business to just give up,” he says.

Cowie isn’t packing up to leave, though. Neither is Felix Abt, a Swiss native who heads a new European Business Association in Pyongyang. “I am very busy with visiting foreign business delegations,” Abt, 50, says. “Take it as a sign that the economy is developing and that more foreign business activities are under way.”

Outsiders’ investment on capitalism’s farthest frontier is gradually bringing benefits to North Koreans, too, says Savage, the tree farmer. “I can’t convert the whole country, but for the people who work for me, I’m giving them a better standard of living,” he says. “Slowly, people will prefer not to work for the government.”

If Savage and his fellow pioneers have their way, it’s only a matter of time before capitalism takes root in North Korea.