North Korean Economy Watch

KCNA has announced a new Economic Development Zone:

Kyongwon Economic Development Zone to Be Set Up in DPRK

Pyongyang, October 8, 2015 18:24 KST (KCNA) — The DPRK decided to set up the Kyongwon Economic Development Zone in some areas of Ryudasom-ri, Kyongwon County, North Hamgyong Province.

The sovereignty of the DPRK is exercised over the zone.

A relevant decree of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly was promulgated on Oct. 8.

According to the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES):

Establishment of New Economic Development Zone in North Hamgyong

North Korea revealed on October 8, 2015 that it will establish the Kyongwon Economic Development Zone in North Hamgyong Province. “An economic development zone will be formed in part of Ryudarisom-ri in Hamgyong Province’s Kyongwon County,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced.

According to the KCNA, the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly released the ordinance establishing the Kyongwon Economic Development Zone on October 8. It did not however, disclose any specific details, stating only that “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exercises its sovereignty.”

Currently there are 16 locations in North Korea that have been designated as regional economic development zones (EDZs): the Chongjin EDZ, Hyesan EDZ, Manpo EDZ, Amnok River EDZ, Wiwon EDZ, Hungnam Industrial Development Zone, Chongnam Industrial Development Zone, Hyondong Industrial Development Zone, Sukchon Agricultural Development Zone, Pukchong Agricultural Development Zone, Orang Agricultural Development Zone, Chongsu Tourist Development Zone, Onsong Island Tourist Development Zone, Sinpyong Tourist Development Zone, Songnim Export Processing Zone, and the Wau Island Export Processing Zone.

There are also seven central-level EDZs: the Rason Special Economic Zone, Wonsan-Kumgangsan Tourist Region, Kaesong Industrial Region, Sinuiju International Economic Zone, Kangryong International Green Model Zone, Onjong High Tech Development Zone, and the Mubong International Special Tourist Zone.

At an EDZ investment briefing session held in Pyongyang on September 21, 2015, Korea Economic Development Association’s general secretary Kim Chon Il explained, “We have made it so that each province can directly manage and develop their local development zones, meeting the demands of the socialist economic management principles of guaranteeing centralized economic management principles and the identity of each region.”

He added, “As we ensure practical economic benefits matching the development principles of economic development zones to the natural geographical conditions of the relevant region, we are starting under a comprehensive plan on a small scale and are achieving results. Going forward we will gradually expand.”

Naenara carried an interview with Choe Yong Dok, Director of the Economic Zone Development of Kangwon Provincial People’s Committee.

In the interview, Director Choe commented on the Wonsan-Mt. Kumgang International Tourist Zone and the Hyondong Industrial Development Zone.

I tried copying the text here, but was not successful. Here is the PDF.

According to the Daily NK:

Daily NK has learned that the fees vendors pay for the right to sell goods varies depending on their goods and is now applicable to stall and street merchants alike. Home appliances and industrial items carry the most expensive stall fee, according to inside sources. This is because these products tend to be large, they sell for a high price, and they have good profit margins.

In a telephone conversation with the Daily NK on the 6th, a source in Yanggang Province said, “The stall fees for market traders are either 1500 KPW [0.18 USD], 1000 KPW [0.12 USD], or 500 KPW [0.06 USD] according to the size and type of product. The fees for sellers on the street are based solely on the type of product, since size is less of a factor for those outside the market.”

Daily NK crosschecked this news with an additional source in the same province and a separate source in South Pyongan Province.

She explained that the small stalls are approximately 1.5 meters wide and are mainly used by food and fish vendors. Medium-sized booths [1000 KPW] are good for sellers of rice, cigarettes, and other household goods while the largest booths are 2.5 meters wide and home to the appliance and industrial goods sellers; these set a given merchant back 1500 KPW.

“As the number of stalls in the marketplace has increased, so have the profits for the authorities, who collect on the fees. In the past, the stall fees were uniform for all sellers, but now the regime has found a way to make more money by customizing the pricing model according to the stall size and the product’s profit margin.”

“Just a few years ago, there was very little regulation of the market. In this lax environment, we saw large increases in the number of market vendors and street sellers. Sellers could move about freely between areas and markets to try to get the best price. Now things are much stricter. To sell X, you first have to pay the fee to sell X.”

“Additionally, both market sellers and street merchants have to pay a fee now. In the past, the fee was exclusively for sellers in the marketplace, but now everyone has to fork over the cash in order to get a badge or label authorizing them to sell that day. Inside the marketplace, the market managers make the rounds at least once a day to make sure everyone is abiding the rules,” she said.

“Now they also make rounds outside of the market at least twice a day to make sure all those merchants are paying for the right to sell. The fees for street merchants are 500 KPW for vegetables and 1000 KPW for light goods. The market managers aggressively police the area to ensure that everyone has the appropriate credentials.”

According to the source, the market traders are only checked once a day because it is easier to track them down and verify that they’ve paid the stall fees. Outside traders go all over the place to sell their goods, which is why the market managers go out twice a day to check on them.

Read the full story here:
Stall fees raised for market vendors
Daily NK
Kang Mi Jin
2015-10-7

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Some shameless self-promotion: the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS released a report yesterday where I (with the help of Curtis and others) study how North Korea’s formalized markets have grown over time, and how they are distributed geographically using satellite imagery from Google Earth. The report is available here. These are the main findings:

• With a few exceptions, formalized markets have grown in North Korea over the past few years. In some cities, they have more than doubled, while other cities have seen only nominal or no changes. Only Pyongsong, the capital of South Pyong’an Province, has seen a significant decline in aggregate market space.

• There exists only a weak correlation between population size and aggregate market space. The correlation between aggregate market space per capita and proximity to Pyongyang, a large driver for demand in the North Korean economy, is also relatively weak. 

The largest aggregate market space per capita can be found in cities in the southwestern part of the country. This suggests that trade on formal markets may be driven by other factors than those commonly assumed, such as sea route trade and agriculture.

According to the JoongAng Ilbo:

The Kaesong Industrial Complex’s accumulated production value is expected to have hit the $3 billion mark, more than a decade after its launch, according to government data.

As of the end of July, accumulated manufactured goods were valued at $2.99 billion, with average monthly production output hovering at around $46 million.

Accumulated production value was thought to have surpassed $3 billion sometime after July.

 

…The volume of manufactured goods at the Kaesong Industrial Complex has increased annually since its opening, except for in 2013, when it was temporarily shut down for five months amid tensions on the peninsula. In 2008, the complex surpassed the $200 million mark in production and continued to expand yearly production levels to reach $469 million in 2012.

Due to the temporary shutdown, the complex saw its annual production drop down to $223 million in 2013, though it bounced back to $469 million the following year.

The number of North Korean workers employed by South Korean firms has gone up, from 7,621 in 2005 to 53,947 in 2014, according to data by the Ministry of Unification.

Here is coverage in Yonhap.

Read the full story here:
Kaesong’s accumulated output at $3B
JoongAng Ilbo
Kang Jin-Kyu
2015-10-5

UPDATE 1 (2015-9-30): Aram Pan (DPRK 360) has posted a comprehensive video of the trade fair for those of us unable to make it.

ORIGINAL POST (2015-9-28): According to Yonhap:

A Chinese envoy has urged more Chinese companies to make inroads into the North Korean market, while calling for deepening economic and trade ties with North Korea.

Li Jinjun, China’s ambassador to North Korea, made the remarks on Thursday as he visited an annual trade fair in Pyongyang, in which about 110 Chinese firms took part, according to the Chinese Embassy in the North on Monday.

Li urged the Chinese companies to “better understand and enter into the North Korean market.”

The Chinese ambassador also “encouraged them to develop friendly relations between China and North Korea and deepen bilateral economic and trade cooperation.”

Political relations between North Korea and China remain strained over the North’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles, but China is the North’s economic lifeline.

About 300 companies from 10 nations, including China, Germany, Singapore and Vietnam, joined the 11th Pyongyang Autumn International Trade Fair, which was held last week, according to the Chinese Embassy.

Read the full story here:
Chinese ambassador calls for deepening economic ties with N. Korea
Yonhap
2015-9-28

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

This certainly has been the season of contradictory information on North Korea’s food supply. The North Korean government is celebrating and claiming success of their agricultural reforms, while the FAO reports that things have gotten worse. Let us recap what has happened:

First there was the drought. North Korean state media described it as the worst one in 100 years. UN agencies predicted large-scale crop failures and appealed for food aid, warning that large shares of the population would be at great risk if aid did not come. The UN’s emergency response fund (CERF) allocated $6.3 million to counter the impacts of the drought. The rains came, however, and the drought alarms seemed to have been exaggerated.

Next, the North Korean media – assuming you can even talk about it as a single, coordinated entity – went the other direction. In July, the weekly Tongil Sinbo claimed that thanks to agricultural reforms, this year’s harvest had actually increased “despite adverse weather conditions”.

And recently, reports turned the other way again. In early September, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN declared that the cereal production forecast for the main season of 2015 had declined drastically from last year due to a “prolonged dry spell”.

The rain that eventually came in July and August, causing flooding in the northern parts of the country and leading to an estimated loss of one percent of all planted areas. The FAO rice production forecast for 2015 is 12 percent below that of last year. State food rations, the importance of which can be debated, declined drastically, according to the agency.

In the midst of all of this, North Korean propaganda is still claiming success for the reforms. Earlier this month, the state news agency KCNA reported that a “dance party” had been held in South Hwanghae, part of the country’s rice bowl, celebrating improving conditions on the countryside:

The performers presented cheerful dances depicting the happy agricultural workers who work and live in the rural areas now turning into a good place to work and live thanks to the successful embodiment of the socialist rural theses under the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

The picture gets even more complicated if one assigns meaning to the fact that cereal imports from China were reportedly lower in July this year compared to 2014. Figures from just one month might not indicate a trend, but given that July was a particularly dire month, these figures are still significant. If imports are being decreased because the official line is that agricultural conditions have improved, no matter the reality, that might be bad news for those in the North Korean public that rely on the public distribution system for any significant part of their consumption.

Either the FAO is right and the North Korean government wrong, or the other way around. Harvests this season cannot have been improving and getting worse at the same time. The FAO is probably far more likely than the North Korean government to have made a correct assessment here. Even if North Korean authorities aren’t claiming success of the reforms for propaganda reasons – which they may well be doing – it is hard to see why their statistical and monitoring capabilities would be better than those of the FAO.

So, the North Korean government is claiming that agricultural reforms are leading to better harvests and food conditions, even when they probably aren’t. Why would they do that? There are lots of possible reasons and one can only speculate.

One possible reason is that the agricultural reforms have become a prestige project. North Korean propaganda channels and news outlets have publically claimed that reforms are being implemented and leading to good results, even though some adjustment problems have been admitted. The same pattern, by the way, can be seen with regards to forestry policies – state media has publicized them with a bang and claimed that they just aren’t being implemented well enough by people on the ground when they don’t seem to be working as intended.

This could be an indication that agricultural reforms are indeed, like many have assumed, a major policy project of Kim Jong-un and the top strata.

That could be good news. After all, North Korea is in dire need of changes in agricultural structures, production methods, ownership and responsibility.

But it could also be bad news. When policies are strongly sanctioned and pushed by the top, their flexibility is likely to be inhibited. In other words, if the top leadership says that something should get done, it has to get done regardless of whether it works well or not.

Again, look at the forestry policies. According to reports from inside the country, those tasked with putting the new policies into practice on the ground say that doing what the central government asks isn’t smart or possible. Nevertheless, such orders are hard and risky to question.

At this stage it is only speculation, which is always a risky endeavor when it comes to North Korea. It may well later turn out to be wrong.

But if the state is placing enough prestige in the agricultural reforms to claim that conditions are improving even if they aren’t, that may lead to limited flexibility in how they are implemented and changed in the future. In other words, if the leadership thinks they are important enough to claim success even when things are getting worse, they may not be prone to changing their orders to fix what isn’t working.

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Yonhap reports about a seemingly interesting forum that has taken place in Beijing, sourcing Global Times reporting. The article is an interesting illustration of the divergent ways in which Chinese and North Korean scholars/analysts seem to view North Korea’s economic situation and business environment (my emphasis):

Scholars from North Korea and China recently held a forum where they remain at odds over whether the isolated North could attract foreign investors and protect them, according to state-run Chinese media.

North Korean scholars insisted that their country offer a raft of legal and financial incentives for foreign investors, but Chinese scholars raised doubts over the North’s efforts, as it is under U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs.

The three-day forum, held in the Chinese border city of Yanji, ended on Sunday, state-run Global Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Paik Il-sung, a legal professor at North Korea’s Kim Il-sung University, said that the North’s laws protect the property rights of foreign investors. Even if the rights of foreign investors undermine North Korea’s national interests, an “unavoidable confiscation” of their property would be carried out in accordance to laws, Paik said.

Choe Su-gwang, an economics professor at the North Korean university, said that North Korea allows foreign investors to arbitrate conflicts with the state throughout an arbitration panel.

Besides geopolitical risks, poor infrastructure was cited by Chinese scholars as one of main reasons for deterring foreign investment in North Korea.

Lin Jinshu, a professor from China’s Yanbian University, said China intends to build infrastructure in the North’s Rason special economic zone, but a lack of relevant accords prevents Chinese investors from doing so.

Rason was designated by North Korea as a free trade zone in 1991, but efforts by the North to bring life to the zone have failed amid geopolitical concerns.

A monthly usage fee for the Internet in the Rason economic zone is 7,000 yuan (about US$1,089), but the Internet there is slow as a “turtle’s pace,” Lin told the forum.

Zhang Huizhi, a professor at China’s Jilin University, also raised the question how North Korea could protect property rights of foreign investors in the event of a war.

Aside from the comment about an arbitration panel, it is notable that the emphasis by the North Korean side of the discussion, at least as reported in this piece, lies very heavily on legal text. It’s enough if written laws are good, seems to be the attitude, which is of course not the way most potential investors see things.

Read the full article:

Yonhap News

N. Korean, Chinese scholars at odds over investment in N. Korea

09-23-2015

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)

North Korea recently promoted its cooperation with foreign companies, highlighting a North Korean cement company that has received investment from a French corporation. This is viewed as a strategy by North Korea to attract foreign investment by publicizing examples of foreign capital in the country.

On September 1, 2015, North Korea uploaded an article on its foreign website ‘Naenara’ promoting the Pyongyang Sangwon Cement Joint Venture, which the French cement company Lafarge has invested in. President of the company Yun Chae Hyok was quoted as saying, “Through each other’s efforts the company is raising the quality of cement by expediting the modernization of the production process as well as increasing production to contribute actively to the country’s primary construction targets.”

Regarding the Sangwon Cement Joint Venture, the Naenara article stated, “The quality of limestone is good, the reserves are plentiful, and from a transportation perspective, the location is good […] The production process is automated, and the company is using supplementary materials, including limestone, in production, so the outlook is very good.” The article also introduced the company Lafarge. “The French building materials company Lafarge, which has more than 200 cement factories, is a corporation that specializes in the production of cement and plaster as well as aggregate and concrete,” it explained.

Naenara also reported that in 2014 the joint venture company built ‘Affiliate Furnace No. 1,’ and according to a decision made by the board of directors in June 2015, next year it will complete construction of ‘Affiliate Furnace No. 2.’ It is believed that North Korea’s intent in promoting the Sangwon Cement Joint Venture is to attract investment from other foreign companies by publicizing examples of foreign capital in the country.

The Pyongyang Sangwon Cement Joint Venture was created when Lafarge invested in North Korea’s Sangwon Cement Complex. In 2007 the Egyptian company Orascom, which is currently invested in North Korea’s Koryolink, acquired 50% of the shares in Sangwon Cement and prepared to invest in the company, but in December of that year it passed its shares and the related mining rights to Lafarge. At the time Lafarge commented, “Given the rapidly growing demand for cement in North Korea, the potential for Sangwon Cement Factory is large.” The company went on to update factory equipment and expand investment in machinery and facilities.

According to the PCV web page:

As a result of irreconcilable differences between the board of Phoenix and the local management, Phoenix Commercial Ventures Ltd has terminated its association with Hana Electronics JVC with immediate effect.

Hana Electronics JVC was a 50/50 joint venture between Phoenix Commercial Ventures Ltd and the trading department of The Ministry of Culture.

Phoenix has no further connection with Hana or any interests (direct or indirect) in its operations.