North Korean Economy Watch

World Environment Day Observed
KCNA
6/5/2007

Papers here Tuesday dedicate articles to the World Environment Day.

Rodong Sinmun says in a signed article that diverse activities and functions are now under way in the DPRK according to the theme for this year designated by the United Nations Environment Programme.

It goes on:

The DPRK has long paid great attention to the environmental protection helpful to promoting the people’s health, increasing the scenic beauty of cities and providing better living conditions and environment. Thanks to the correct environmental protection policy of the DPRK government, the DPRK is recognized by the world community as a country with good environment.

The issue of environmental protection is now presenting itself as a very important and urgent one worldwide. Ecological environment is being seriously contaminated in various parts of the world for various reasons.

No country can be an exception in the work to protect the environment on the earth. Good results can be expected in this work only when all countries make positive efforts, aware of the urgency and importance of the work.

The DPRK will conduct positive work for environmental protection, maintaining close touch with international organizations in the future, too.

Minju Joson in a signed article notes that global warming is the most serious worldwide problem at present, adding that the melting of ice in the polar areas is the most vivid example of it. In order to cope with the situation the DPRK is taking steps to increase and firmly protect fresh water resources, stop soil from being washed away and prevent damage by strong winds and floods.
DPRK Strives to Prevent Global Warming
KCNA
6/5/2007

The abnormal climate phenomena caused by global warming has been raised today as a hard problem in the world.

The UN Environment Programme set “Global Warming” as the theme for this year on the occasion of the World Environment Day (June 5), since it threatens the life and security of humankind.

Organized on the occasion of the day in the country were colorful events including a scientific symposium and a national seminar on reducing the emission of atmospheric green-house gases and preventing global warming, and film shows for arousing profound social interest in the issue.

Jong Hyong Il, a department director in the Ministry of Land and Environment Preservation, told KCNA that the DPRK which has been suffering from the upward temperature in recent years is conducting varied activities in accordance with the world trend for preventing such phenomena. He went on:

It deepens the scientific researches into elevation of energy efficiency and utilization of regenerated energy and directs efforts to the work for applying the results.

The construction of large and minor hydro-power stations is being pushed ahead through an all-people movement and application of wind power positively encouraged.

An effort to improve the efficiency of solar batteries is being made, too.

Meanwhile, a brisk tree-planting campaign is being launched to increase the adsorption of carbon.

The DPRK, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and the Montreal Protocol on Substances Destroying Ozone Layer, is doing its best to restrict and reduce the emission of atmospheric green-house gases as much as possible.

World Environment Day Marked
KCNA
6/5/2007

An event took place at Changdok School on June 5 to observe World Environment Day.

Present there were officials in the field of environmental protection and teachers, employees and students of the school.

Also present on invitation were the associate director of the “Environmental Education Media Project” whose office is located in China and environment experts of different countries.

The guests laid bouquets before the statue of President Kim Il Sung at the school and paid a tribute to him.

After going round the historic building where the President studied, they were briefed on the history of the school.

The function heard speeches on the importance of the environment protection.

The participants watched a recorded material on global warming and pictures on the theme of it before appreciating a performance given by an art group of the school.

The guests appreciated the schoolchildren’s activities of the care-for-the-homeland team.

Choson Ilbo
5/31/2007

All North Korean students studying in Beijing have returned to their home country, and some have dropped out of their schools, sources said on Wednesday. According to Peking University, 19 North Korean students from that school left for home before the weeklong May Day holidays starting May 1. None had returned as of Wednesday.

One North Korean student who was majoring in economics at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management has reportedly quit the school. Many other North Korean students have apparently submitted applications to drop out and have returned to their home country.

Currently there are very few North Koreans studying in Beijing. About 200 North Korean studied in the Chinese capital in the 1980s, but now only 50 or 60 are studying there on North Korean and Chinese scholarships.

An official with the South Korean Embassy in China said, “The North Korean government has recalled students studying abroad and children of overseas residents, including diplomats, for ideological education every summer vacation. However, it is difficult to understand why the North Korean government has recalled students in foreign countries during the school semester.”

Yonhap
5/22/2007

A lawmaker of the pro-government Uri Party has said the North Korean economy has taken a step toward economic openness.

But North Korea watchers still remained suspicious as to whether the Pyongyang regime has the genuine determination to carry out market-oriented economic reform.

“I got the strong impression that the North is striving toward economic reform during my visit to Pyongyang,” said Rep. Choi Sung of the Uri Party in a telephone interview with The Korea Times Monday.

Choi visited the North from May 14 to 18 with 130 South Korean business leaders to participate in fairs to attract external investment.

The Stalinist country is unlikely to follow in the footsteps the former Soviet Union took in the post-Cold War era, and therefore, its growth model will take a different form, Choi said.

“The North is seeking a tailored growth model by introducing an incentive-based system while maintaining its communist regime,” said the lawmaker who has visited the North 20 times.

He said the library of one of the elite universities in the North displayed a wide array of information technology related publications, and citizens were anxious to learn English.

“Clerks working at shops selling souvenirs looked very business-oriented and tried to sell as many products as possible to their customers,” he said.

Asked if he had a chance to talk to any North Korean officials if they share his view, Rep. Choi said he had not.

He said it was very evident the North was moving toward economic openness.

His view, however, is at odds with what most North Korea watchers have expressed through media reports.

The Yonhap News Agency reported on May 18 that former North Korean Prime Minister Pak Pong-ju was removed and made manager of a chemical complex because his capitalism-oriented stance fueled objections from senior North Korea officials.

Pak was named manger of the synthetic fiber complex in South Pyongan Province, the report said.

Citing unidentified sources, the report said the former premier had called on the North to introduce an incentive-based system into its economy.

The conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper supported the observation in an article published on May 19, saying that key officials calling for introducing an incentive-based system in the North have been demoted since the 1990s.

The Japan Times (Hat tip to the Marmot)
Jason Williams
5/22/2007

In February this year over 300 people attended the performing arts festival at a junior high school in Okayama. It was much the same as any other arts festival at any other junior high school in Japan; the students sang, danced, played music and performed skits for an audience made up of family and friends.

There was, however, one major difference — the program wasn’t Japanese. It was Korean. Korean in song, Korean in dance and Korean in language.

The festival was at the Okayama Korean Primary and Middle School, a school for Korean residents of Japan run by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryun, which has close ties to North Korea.

As a teacher and “insider” at a Korean school in Japan, I would like to share some of my experiences and observations to demonstrate how these schools are at the same time similar to and uniquely different from other schools here.

When I mention to others that I teach at a Korean school, I can usually expect one of three reactions. First, most people, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, are surprised to learn that such schools exist. In fact, Chongryun operates about 70 schools throughout Japan, from kindergarten to university, and in 2006 the organization celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of its schools.

Second are those who have at least heard of the schools but say that they know very little about them.

The third, and most damaging, reaction is rooted in the misconception that the schools are similar to the way that North Korea is portrayed in the Japanese media. I am often asked if the school is militaristic or if the students and teachers are brainwashed, communist fanatics who hate Japan and America. I have even been asked if the school has spies or if I feel safe being at the school. I can’t help thinking, “Why don’t you just come see for yourself?”

The school I teach at is located near Kurashiki in Okayama Prefecture. The school building, as I approached it for the first time nine years ago, looked like others I had seen in Japan but a bit smaller and older. When I arrived at the school, I was met with the usual pointing, giggling and staring from students that most foreigners experience when they go to a local school.

The first difference I noticed was the clothes of the female students and teachers. They were all wearing the traditional Korean “chima chogori.”

“The chima chogori is a symbol of our natural culture, national pride and history. To wear it is to recognize ourselves as Korean,” explains Pak Kum Suk, a former English teacher at the school.

I also noticed was that the Korean language was ubiquitous in the school. Writing on chalkboards and bulletin boards, announcements and conversations were all in Korean.

Knowing almost nothing about the Korean community in Japan at that time, I assumed that the students and teachers were from Korea and were living in Japan because of work, study or some other reason. Later on I learned about the history of ethnic Korean residents of Japan, known as “zainichi” Koreans in Japanese, and that all of the students and teachers were actually born and grew up in Japan.

Other than the uniforms and language, is there a lot that distinguishes this school from other elementary and junior-high schools in Japan?

Well, yes and no. Like most schools, the students study a basic curriculum that includes math, science, history, Japanese and English. Unlike other schools, the classes, except for English and Japanese, are all taught in Korean. Korean is not just the language of communication at the school; it is the language of instruction as well.

“The original purpose of the schools founded by the first generation of Koreans in Japan was to teach their children Korean language,” says Pak.

This does not mean that students are unable to speak Japanese. On the contrary, the combination of Korean-language immersion in school and the Japanese-language world outside the school mean that the children tend to be naturally bilingual.

“When I say I’m Korean,” says the school’s English teacher, Kang Yun Hwi, “some Japanese ask me why I can speak Japanese so well. I have to explain that I was born in Japan.”

The school also has clubs for students to participate in. In addition to soccer and volleyball there are Korean dance and music clubs. Such activities play an important role in helping students develop a sense of ethnic identity. Events at the school include sports festivals, parents’ day, field trips and graduation ceremonies. These are similar to the ones I have seen at Japanese schools, but with an emphasis on Korean language and culture.

The students are typical middle-schoolers. The boys talk about sports and computer games, the girls about singers and idols. Both worry about high-school entrance exams.

“When I was a junior high school student, my classmates and I talked about popular musicians like Hikaru Utada, Namie Amuro and Mr. Children. We also took “purikura” (photo booth snaps) whenever we went out,” recalls Kim Woo Ki, a recent graduate of Chongryun-operated Korea University.

The unconventional thing about the school is that staff and students make an open effort to maintain their ethnic identity and cultural heritage. Once when the students were making the Korean food “chijimi,” I mentioned that it is Korean “okonomiyaki” only to be lightheartedly corrected — okonomiyaki is Japanese chijimi.

In the teachers’ room there are pictures of the late North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his son, current leader Kim Jong Il, which surprised me the first time I saw them. However, they are the only ones I have seen in the school.

“From the beginning, North Korea has given a lot of funding, educational aid like musical instruments, and concern to the schools,” explains Pak.

Conversations I have with teachers tend to focus on current events and culture rather than politics. The one time a political topic did come up was after the admission of the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea. I taught at the school just after this news broke and the staff all expressed seemingly honest shock and sincere remorse and regret. They seemed to be just as surprised as everyone else I knew. Nobody denied the facts of these incidents as many Japanese people I have talked to believe.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., teachers and students expressed shock and worry, asked if my family and friends were OK and offered me, an American, their condolences.

I have seen no flags, military drills, marches or propaganda at the school. The only open, perhaps hopeful, political statement I see are maps of the Korean Peninsula that have no border separating North and South.

“The relationship between the North and South is better than most Japanese people think,” argues Pak.

I have noticed that everyone refers to themselves, their clothes, language and customs as “Korean” — not “North” or “South,” just “Korean.”

“The term ‘pro-Pyongyang’ (for Chongryun) is not completely appropriate,” says Pak. “Everyone in Chongryun and all people who send their children to our schools do not necessarily support the North. Some people simply place an importance on Korean ethnicity and identity, support our curriculum, and emphasize ties among community members.”

The school is very open to people who would like to visit and has welcomed my mother, wife (Japanese), and friends and coworkers from Australia, Canada, America and Japan. I have seen exchanges with Japanese schools and visits by community groups.

“We would like to have friendship with whoever wants to sincerely know about us and not people who are interested in gossip,” Pak says.

Even though I have mentioned that many people are unaware of the existence of the Korean schools, certain people, unfortunately, are. Beginning with the admission of the abduction of Japanese nationals, acts of aggression toward Chongryun schools and their students have increased. The number of recorded incidents nationwide since October of last year has already exceeded 150 and includes attacks on students, damage to the schools, and threatening telephone calls and mail.

“We have had our windows broken and (rightwing) sound buses drive around the school,” explains Pak.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of media interest in these schools, many people are unaware of these incidents.

I hope that in this article I have not idealized the school I teach at or my experiences there. Also, I am not trying to justify or support any of the political policies of North Korea. My intent is to help people understand what the Chongryun schools and their students are actually like and to encourage others to visit the schools and discover more first-hand.

I do not want people to develop misconceptions based on political affairs between North Korea and Japan. The Chongryun schools are not about politics. They are about older generations helping younger generations learn their traditional culture and appreciate their ethnic identity.

Whenever I go to the school, I can’t help thinking how much easier it would be if the students to went to Japanese schools. The building would be bigger, there would be more facilities and more classmates to get to know.

But at what cost? The loss of language, history, culture and ethnic identity is a heavy price to pay. The desire and ability of the teachers, students and parents to preserve and promote their heritage is certainly to be admired and, I hope, respected by others in Japan.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE (to your own Google Earth)

Using numerous maps, articles, and interviews I have mapped out North Korea by “industry” (or topic) on Google Earth.  This is the most authoritative map of North Korea that exists publicly today.

Agriculture, aviation, cultural, manufacturing, railroad, energy, politics, sports, military, religion, leisure, national parks…they are all here, and will captivate anyone interested in North Korea for hours.

Naturally, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds on the more “controversial” locations.  In time, I hope to expand this further by adding canal and road networks. 

I hope this post will launch a new interest in North Korea. There is still plenty more to learn, and I look forward to hearing about improvements that can be made.

KCNA
4/17/2007

General Secretary Kim Jong Il sent educational aid fund and stipends amounting to 238,000,000 yen to the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) for the democratic national education of the children of Koreans in Japan on the occasion of the 95th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung. 

The educational aid funds and stipends sent so far by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to Chongryon in 153 installments total 46,006,223,000 yen.

Science Magazine
Vol. 316. no. 5822, p. 183
DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5822.183
Richard Stone
4/13/2007

In a dramatic new sign that North Korea is emerging from isolation, the country’s first international university has announced plans to open its doors in Pyongyang this fall.

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) will train select North Korean graduate students in a handful of hard-science disciplines, including computer science and engineering. In addition, founders said last week, the campus will anchor a Silicon Valley-like “industrial cluster” intended to generate jobs and revenue.

One of PUST’s central missions is to train future North Korean elite. Another is evangelism. “While the skills to be taught are technical in nature, the spirit underlying this historic venture is unabashedly Christian,” its founding president, Chin Kyung Kim, notes on the university’s Web site (www.pust.net).

The nascent university is getting a warm reception from scientists involved in efforts to engage the Hermit Kingdom. “PUST is a great experiment for North-South relations,” says Dae-Hyun Chung, a physicist who retired from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and now works with Roots of Peace, a California nonprofit that aims to remove landmines from Korea’s demilitarized zone. To Chung, a Christian university is fitting: A century ago, Christianity was so vibrant in northern Korea, he says, that missionaries called Pyongyang “the Jerusalem of the East.”

The idea for PUST came in a surprise overture from North Korea in 2000, a few months after a landmark North-South summit. A decade earlier, Kim had established China’s first foreign university: Yanbian University of Science and Technology, in Yanji, the capital of an autonomous Korean enclave in China’s Jilin Province, just over the border from North Korea. In March 2001, the North Korean government authorized Kim and his backer, the nonprofit Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture (NAFEC), headquartered in Seoul, to establish PUST in southern Pyongyang. It also granted NAFEC the right to appoint Kim as PUST president and hire faculty of any nationality, as well as a contract to use the land for 50 years.

NAFEC broke ground in June 2002 on a 1-million-square-meter plot that had belonged to the People’s Army in Pyongyang’s Nak Lak district, on the bank of the Taedong River. Construction began in earnest in April 2004. That summer, workers–a few of the 800 young soldiers on loan to the project–unearthed part of a bell tower belonging to a 19th century church dedicated to Robert Jermain Thomas, a Welsh Protestant missionary killed aboard his ship on the Taedong in 1866.

NAFEC’s fundraising faltered, however, and construction halted in fall 2004. The group intensified its Monday evening prayers and broadened its money hunt, getting critical assistance from a U.S. ally: the former president of Rice University, Malcolm Gillis, a well-connected friend of the elder George Bush and one of three co-chairs of a committee overseeing PUST’s establishment. “He made a huge difference,” says Chan-Mo Park, president of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), another co-chair. South Korea’s unification ministry also quietly handed PUST a $1 million grant–more than it has awarded to any other North-South science cooperation project. This helped the school complete its initial $20 million construction push.

At the outset, PUST will offer master’s and Ph.D. programs in areas including computing, electronics, and agricultural engineering, as well as an MBA program. North Korea’s education ministry will propose qualified students, from which PUST will handpick the inaugural class of 150. It is now seeking 45 faculty members. Gillis and other supporters are continuing to stump for a targeted $150 million endowment to cover PUST operations, which in the first year will cost $4 million. Undergraduate programs will be added later, officials say. PUST, at full strength, aims to have 250 faculty members, 600 grad students, and 2000 undergrads.

PUST hopes to establish research links and exchanges with North Korea’s top institutions and with universities abroad. “It is a very positive sign,” says Stuart Thorson, a political scientist at Syracuse University in New York who leads a computer science collaboration between Syracuse and Kimchaek University of Technology in Pyongyang. “Key to success will be achieving on-the-ground involvement of international faculty in PUST’s teaching and research.”

Some observers remain cautious, suggesting that the North Korean military could use the project to acquire weapons technology or might simply commandeer the campus after completion. A more probable risk is that trouble in the ongoing nuclear talks could cause delays. At the moment, however, signs are auspicious. Park, who plans to teach at PUST after his 4-year POSTECH term ends in August, visited Pyongyang last month as part of a PUST delegation. “The atmosphere was friendly,” he says. “The tension was gone.” The Monday prayer group continues, just in case.

KCNA
4/8/2007

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a letter of thanks from the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) on April 8 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the remittance of educational aid fund and stipends to the children of Koreans in Japan by President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The education aid fund and stipends sent by the President 50 years ago served as life-giving water that brought the national education in an alien land into bloom and an engine that dynamically pushed forward Chongryon and the movement of Koreans in Japan, the letter said, and continued:

The Koreans in Japan could usher in a heyday of national education by displaying patriotic enthusiasm in all fields with the high honor and pride of being overseas citizens of the DPRK led by the immensely kind-hearted and wise President and conduct a more vigorous patriotic movement centered on the national education after building modern Korean schools in different parts of Japan.

Over the past five decades since then, the warm love and care shown by the President have shed more brilliant rays under your loving care and the educational aid fund and stipends sent by you keep the great flower garden of national education in fuller bloom.

Recalling that Kim Jong Il has wisely led the national education of Koreans in Japan, regarding it as a lifeline for the movement of Koreans in Japan, the letter noted that thanks to his guidance they have firmly preserved the soul of Koreans and led a worthwhile life as the overseas citizens of the DPRK generation after generation even in terror-ridden Japan where national persecution and phobia about Koreans prevail.

We Koreans in Japan will cherish the faith that we are sure to emerge victorious as long as we are led by you and wage a more vigorous patriotic movement, decisively frustrating the heinous moves of the Japanese right-wing reactionaries by the force of single-minded unity and thus greet with pride the 21st congress of Chongryon as one of victors, one of unity and put the movement of Koreans in Japan on a new higher level, the letter concluded.

NK Choson.com

Kimchaek University of Technology, the top college of science and engineering as well as a central higher educational institution of North Korea, is located in Pyongyang, not in Kimchaek.

Colleges and universities in North Korea are classified into two: central and regional. But criteria for the classification differ from those of the South. It’s wrong to assume that those located in the capital are central institutes of higher education, and those housed in provincial cities and towns are regional ones.

Central higher educational institutions as referred to in the North denote “central-grade institutions of higher education founded in Pyongyang and elsewhere in the provinces for the purpose of educating prospective national leaders, engineers and scientists.” Accordingly, colleges and universities located in Pyongyang are not necessarily central institutions of higher education; nor those situated in the provinces are all regional colleges and universities.

Chongjin Mining and Metallurgy College, the only one of its kind not only in the North but in Asia, and Wonsan Agriculture College, the first of its kind in the North, for example, are definitely central colleges, though the former is located in North Hamgyong Province, and the latter in Kangwon Province, respectively. The same applies to Shinuiju Light Industry College located in North Pyongan Province; Sariwon College of Koryo Pharmacy in North Hwanghai Province; and Hamhung Hydrographic and Power College in South Hamgyong Province. Though located in provincial cities, they are all central colleges founded with regional features taken into account.

On the other hand, Pyongyang Machinery College, Pyongyang Agriculture College, Pyongyang Printing Industry College, though all are located in the capital, are classified as regional colleges. Each province or special city under the direct jurisdiction of the central government in the North has two normal and teachers colleges and one arts and physical education colleges, all of which are typical regional ones. Factory, farm and fishing farm colleges attached to industrial entities also belong to the regional category.

What is the central criterion separating central high educational institutions from their regional counterparts? It depends on who administers and manages them. Those administered directly by the Education Ministry are central institutions of higher education; those administered by the Education Department of the People’s Committee of a relevant province or special city placed directly under the jurisdiction of the central government are regional colleges or universities. Needless to say, no regional institutions of higher education are free from Education Ministry guidance; the guidance is only given indirectly through the People’s Committee Education Department of a pertinent province or special city. In an exception, Kim Il Sung University, the most prestigious higher educational institute in the North, is placed under the direct jurisdiction of the cabinet.

Central colleges and universities, wherever they are located, recruit students from across the land, and their graduates are assigned to any agencies, factories, corporations or research institutes in the country. On the other hand, only seniors and graduates from senior high schools in pertinent provinces and special cities are eligible to enter regional institutes of higher education, whose graduates, when given job assignments upon graduation, are confined to offices or factories in their respective administrative areas.

North Korea has quite a few institutes of higher education that are called colleges, entirely unrelated to central and regional colleges, but whose nature and curricula are totally different. The Yalu River College trains espionage agents sent to the South under the jurisdiction of the Reconnaissance Bureau of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces; Pyongyang College of Technology, also called the State Security Agency Political College, produces prospective leaders of the intelligence agency.

The Automation College, once called Mirim College, is a special college founded for the purpose of turning out manpower needed for waging electronics information warfare, placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces. The College of People’s Economics and International Relations College are institutes retraining leading staff of the party headquarters; the College of Communism run by each province or special city is a special educational institute retraining junior leaders of regional chapters of the Workers’ Party.

Yonhap
4/4/2007

South and North Korea will open their first joint college later this year in a show of warming ties between the two sides, officials said Wednesday.

The Pyongyang Science and Technology College is scheduled to open in the North’s capital on Sept. 10 and will initially house 150 graduate students for such courses as master of business administration (MBA).

“We had originally planned to open it in April but strained inter-Korean ties delayed the project. The favorable environment will make the project go smoothly this time,” said Lim Wan-geun, a boarding member of the Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture.

Kim Jin-kyong, dean of Yanbian Science and Technology College, will be the first dean of the inter-Korean college, the official said. The college will consist of a five-story building for lectures, a four-story building for a library, dining facilities and research and five dormitory buildings.

Inter-Korean relations have warmed considerably since the 2000 summit of their leaders, but tension persists since the rival states are still technically in a state of war, as no peace treaty was signed at the end of the Korean War.

South Korea suspended its food and fertilizer aid to North Korea after it conducted missile tests in July. A possible resumption of the aid was blocked due to the North’s nuclear bomb test in October.

But the relationship was revived after North Korea promised to end its nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid, and the two sides held the first ministerial talks in seven months in March.

Koreas to open first joint university
Korea Herald
Cho Ji-hyun
3/15/2007

The first joint university between South and North Korea will open in Pyongyang in September, a senior member of the founding committee told The Korea Herald.

South Koreans including Park Chan-mo, president of POSTECH in Pohang, visited Pyongyang yesterday to discuss the establishment and operation of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, or PUST.

Early last year, the Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture, a Seoul-based nonprofit organization, agreed with the North’s education authorities to open PUST as early as last October.

The schedule has been delayed due to the lack of progress in their talks amid tensions caused by North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests last year.

Their contacts have recently resumed as the ties between the two Koreas improved following the six-party agreement on the North’s nuclear programs in Beijing.

In an interview with The Korea Herald, Park, a member of the founding committee, said the school will open in September and that further discussions will take place before the opening.

The visiting delegation includes Kim Chin-kyung, president of Yanbian University of Science and Technology, who assumes the post of founding president of the Pyongyang university.

Choi Kwang-chul, professor of Seoul’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, also joined the trip.

For the four-day trip, they are to inspect the progress of construction work, and discuss the cross-border passage of faculty and internet connections for the school.

“We will raise two demands – constructing a land route between the two Koreas to allow professors to travel across the borders and providing internet connection,” Park said.

A Seoul government official also confirmed that the school will open in September.

The project was first initiated in 2001. The Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture plans to expand the school into a university with 240 professors and more than 2,000 students from both countries.

However, the university plans to open with 50 professors and 200 students participating in master’s and doctoral programs in its first year, university officials wrote on their school website.

The university project is led by Park, Lee and Malcolm Gillis, former university president of Rice University in Texas.

In a separate effort, POSTECH has worked on a joint project with the Pyongyang Informatics Center, or PIC, since April 2001, according to Park.

Using PIC’s three dimensional computer aided design program, POSTECH has completed the development of a software called “Construction,” which offers a virtual walk through the construction site to detect errors, he said.