North Korean Economy Watch

Yonhap
4/26/2007

Medical doctors from South and North Korea on Thursday started working together at a hospital inside an industrial complex just north of the inter-Korean border, officials said.

“We will make efforts to develop it into a general hospital in Kaesong. I thank a lot of people who help us,” said Jeong Geun, secretary-general of Green Doctors, which is in charge of running the medical facilities inside the Kaesong industrial complex.

Since Green Doctors established facilities for emergency medical services in January 2005, it has provided free medical services for about 20,000 workers from South and North Korea. It plans to open a general hospital in Kaesong by early 2008. 

The doctors held a ceremony in front of the medical facilities and about 200 officials from the two Koreas were present, Jeong said.

So far, there have been piecemeal inter-Korean exchange programs for medical doctors, but this marks the first time that doctors from the two Koreas have worked together at the same hospital since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

According to officials, the South will handle dental, surgical and internal disease affairs, while the North will specialize in eye care, oriental medicine, obstetrics and gynecology.

Medical officials from the two sides have been preparing for the launch of the joint medical services for several months, and about 30 medical staff, including nurses and paramedics from the two sides, will provide assistance for the medical team.

The complex, located just north of the demilitarized zone dividing the two Koreas, is a jointly-operated project in which South Korean businesses produce goods through the employment of cheap North Korean labor. Twenty-one South Korean factories employ about 11,160 North Korean workers in Kaesong. 

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.

Kyodo News
4/20/2007

About 16 million children and adults have been immunized against measles in North Korea in one of the fastest responses to a major outbreak of the disease, it was revealed Friday.

The mass vaccination was organized by the U.N. Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and North Korea after the government asked for help in February.

According to the international organizations, the immunization campaign was done in two phases, with 6 million children aged 6 months to 15 years vaccinated last month and 10 million people aged 16 to 45 years immunized earlier this month.

The campaign was arranged following the appearance of several cases of measles in North Korea last November. By February this year two adults and two children had died and more than 3,600 had been infected.

Measles had not been reported in North Korea before this outbreak since 1992, according to a joint press release from the international organizations involved, and many health workers in the country were unfamiliar with the disease.

“This was a remarkable example of good cooperation between different organizations,” said Jaap Timmer, the International Federation’s head of delegation in North Korea.

“The Red Cross mobilized more than 15,000 of its volunteers to visit families and explain the importance and benefits of the vaccination campaign.”

Measles is spread by contact with fluid from an infected person’s nose or mouth and is highly contagious. Symptoms include fever and a rash.

Sending vaccines and syringes to North Korea cost about $6 million, the press release said.

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
4/19/2007

North Korea does not have a sex problem = North Korea, until 1980s, was not open about sex. A conservative aspect remained in their consciousness and under the socialist setup that emphasized rules, the problem of sex was not an important topic in everyday life. But recently, with exposure to much information from the outside world, a freer atmosphere regarding the issue of sex has been forming. However, North Korean women cannot be free in the midst of sex-related violence.

Ahn Mi Ran said women who go around the provinces alone for trade become targets of men’s sex crimes as well.

-Interviewees

Kim Young Soon (23)—defected in 2003, withdrew from Pyongyang High-Tech University
Ahn Mi Ran (43) – defected in 2003, born in Hoiryeong, North Hamkyung, escaped organ sales
Che Kyung Ja (35)—defected in 1997, born in Hamheung, South Hamkyung, married Korean-Chinese husband
Lee Eun Hee (39)-defected in 2000, born in Shinuiju North Pyongan, worked as a “runner” (broker)
Kang Soon Nhuh (40) – defected in 2002, born in Hyesan Yangkang, escaped organ sales

”One woman I knew worked as a runner from Pyongyang to Hamheung. According to her, women who ride trains experience a lot of incidents. Trains stop often and become delayed, so women frequently stay on the trains until the middle of the night, but there are no electric lights. So men come up to women who are around 50 years old and grope their bodies. When this became chronic, women just accepted this as how things were. When she told her husband, he told her to stop immediately, but there was no way to live if she did not trade, so she still runs. Women who run have to prepare themselves for such incidents.”

Particularly, if these problems become publicly known, it impacts the women’s entrance to the Labor Party. Kang Soon Nyuh explained, “If women become admitted, they can become big leaders, so there are a lot of women who want to enter. If women stay at home, they get entangled with the Union of Democratic Women, which is exhausting. But they do not touch women who are admitted to the party for the most part.”

”But women, upon entrance, have to submit their bodies to the leaders. If women are admitted, it automatically means these women have undergone such incidences. After returning from the Army, they become automatically admitted. This is standard. It has become such a prevalent incidence, that anybody will acknowledge this.”

In North Korea, sex trade is prohibited in principle, but after the severe food shortage in mid-1990s, this practice has seriously spread, centering on stations in big cities. Prostitution can be the utmost survival method that women can select.

Lee Eun Hee said, “If you go to the Pyongyang station, old women will approach men and ask if they will not take up standby lodging. Standby lodging, in one word, means
homestay. Men, if they are interested, will point to a woman standing on the platform and inform, “this one for 10,000 won and that one for 25,000 won. Women are not gathered in one place, but stand scattered between people. The price is based on appearance and age, in that order. If the man selects a woman, they go together.”

She added, “Among these women, vagabonds are included. In the starvation period, there were news that female college students would go out to the streets to sell themselves.”

Additionally, secondary problems resulting from improper teaching of sex education is not insignificant. North Korean teenagers are hardly receiving what can be called, “sex education.” Female students are taught in applied subjects about women’s hygiene, health, and raising a baby, but male-female relationships are not taught.

Kim Young Soon heard a college friend’s petition one day, “Comrade, can you help me get rid of a baby?” In a North Korean college, if the pregnancy is revealed, the student is kicked out of school. But Ms. Kim did not know what to do because she had not yet received such an education.

“Chosun women have not received education even once since their birth. There are no contraceptives and they have not even heard of a condom. I went to the neighborhood clinic and gave the doctor the value of a cigarette and pleaded. Finally, I was referred to an obstetrician at the district’s hospital. But even there, you have to give money under the table to the doctor. Hospitals do not even give food, so we had to bring rice ourselves. After paying 30,000 won, my friend was able to safely undergo the surgery.”

“The doctor said many women receive such surgeries. But some women do not even have money and are ashamed, so they do not go the hospital but damage their bodies while using folk remedies. Chosun women do not have such an education, so they hear from their mothers to drink eggs diluted in vinegar or to fall from a precipice to abort the baby. The doctor said never to try such means, because of the damage to the body. But even at the hospital, you have to give adequate money to receive comfortable treatment.”

Daily NK
Kang Jae Hyok
4/9/2007

Since the nuclear experiment last year trade between North Korea and China had dwindled. However, lately, business is prospering thanks to the friendly moods between the U.S. and North Korea. Nonetheless, the frequent change in customs officers and their unreasonable requests are disturbing the businessmen.

Some Chinese merchants travel into and out of North Korea everyday, or at the least every couple of days. One businessman, Han Chul Ryong (pseudonym, Korean-Chinese, 42) who had recently visited North Korea for business, expressed his feelings in a concerned voice in a telephone conversation with the DailyNK on the 6th.

Han currently lives in Jilian and has been trading goods with North Korea for 4 years now. With a 2.5 ton truck, he imports and sells North Korean seafood and herbal medicines in China.

Han said, “Nowadays, I don’t want to trade anymore because of the customs officers. They make our lives so difficult… It’s like they have some sort of steel plate over their faces or something. They have no dignity, nothing.”

He added, “Customs officers are so competitive and make so many demands that I cannot remember them all unless it is written down in a notebook. They request a variety of goods such as food, fruits, medicine and electronic goods. Alcohol and cigarettes are a must.”

Another tradesman, Kim Chan Joo (pseudonym) who was traveling with Han said, “Some customs officers go as far as demanding materials for home renovations such as cement, iron rods, window panes, windows, doors and nails.”

When asked what kind of privileges customs officers give after receiving bribes, Kim responded, “Of courses there are privileges… Sometimes they reduce taxes or place a blind eye to goods that should not pass through.”

He said, “There is a saying, ‘A cow fed also gives dung.’ A customs officer who has been fed bribes cannot possibly enforce strict control” and added, “Though customs officers have helped increase trade, as time goes by, the standard of their demands are also rising.”

“That’s not the only annoying problem. After going to all that trouble developing friendly relations with customs officers, they are replaced by new ones and hence there are many losses… It takes double time and money to acquire friendly relations with newly replaced customs officers,” Kim said.

Being a customs officer is considered one of the upper middle-class jobs in North Korea. Unlike an average office worker, customs officers are treated similar to the army. The National Safety Agency is even in charge of some of the customs officers.

Often these people are greedy to accumulate funds for retirement or for their children and as a result, try to gather as much as they can while in office. Even in a chaotic North Korea society, the position of customs officer is considered the yolk of an egg. Consequently, officers go to all means to confiscate as much money as they can from Chinese tradesmen and relatives visiting family.

North Korean authorities are strengthening control over customs officers, however it is difficult to obliterate the problem as it is so deeply rooted. Rather, than the situation dying out, it seems that their unreasonable attitude will increase.

If a customs officer makes receives too many anonymous complaints, he/she is given a warning or penalty. When the situation worsens, the customs officer is then demoted to a different office or in the worse case, dismissed from duty.

Recently, it seems that North Korean authorities have become more aware of the situation and are making efforts to enforce control. One method is removing the officers who are dependent on this corrupt system to different locations.

Han said, “If customs officers don’t do this, it is hard for them to eat and live… Though the demands by Chosun customs officers are increasing by the day, in order to trade there is no other way.”

Daily NK
Kim Song A
4/6/2007

Aid for North Korea to prevent further spread of outbreak

The spread of foot and mouth disease that took over the province of Sangwon, Pyongyang has been brought under control announced the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on the 4th, further adding that future endemics were improbable.

The FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) conducted tests over a period of one week inspecting the infected areas of North Korea.

The FAO Newsroom site reported Chief Veterinary Officer, Joseph Domenech who said, “Based on the mission’s visit to the infected area and discussions with North Korean veterinary authorities we concluded that there is a limited risk that new outbreaks could occur.” Nonetheless, North Korea is yet to remain on the alert list he said.

In relation, the DailyNK made similar reports in February on the rise of foot and mouth disease in the border regions of North Hamkyung province and control measures taken by North Korean authorities to block further contamination.

The disease was identified in cows of Hoiryeong city in early January. Consequently, North Korean authorities secluded the region for 40 days until Feb 24th, even terminating all transportation to the North Korea-China border.

The FAO is preparing a proposal to prevent further epidemics by assisting North Korea with vaccines, an emergency plan as well as laboratory infrastructure and training.

In future, North Korea will need to strengthen its system where animals are registered and identifiable as well as improving quarantine and controlled supervision of animals during transportation.

This epidemic was the first to occur in North Korea since 1960. So far, 400 infected cattle and 2,600 pigs have been rounded up and are undergoing the standard regulatory procedures.

Previously on March 28th, the South Korean government sent 280 mn won worth of medicine, antiseptic and instruments to North Korea to prevent further outbreak. Additionally, extra supplies requested by the North including sterilization are being prepared to be sent.

Yonhap
3/28/2007

South Korea on Wednesday shipped medical aid to North Korea to help stem the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in the communist country, the Unification Ministry said.

The shipment includes six types of medicine and five types of medical equipment worth about 280 million won (US$280,000), the ministry said in a statement.

Last Thursday, South Korea endorsed its package of emergency aid worth 3.3 billion won for the North, which has culled hundreds of cows and thousands of pigs infected by the disease since July.

South Korea plans to make additional shipments after the two sides hold a working-level meeting of quarantine officials in the North Korean border city of Kaesong on Friday.

The World Organization for Animal Health confirmed the outbreak, and South Korea has proposed to support the North’s quarantine measures. 

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
3/19/2007

Herbal medicine occupies a very prominent place in the North Korean health care system.
In fact, it would be but a minor exaggeration to say that nowadays the North Korean health care system is largely built around traditional herbal medicine.

But this was not always the case. In the early years, until the mid-1950s, herbal medicine was looked upon with disapproval.

It did not appear ‘scientific’ enough, and the Soviet educated doctors saw it as a potentially dangerous superstition.

The first signs of the coming change in attitude were in 1954 when the licensing system for herbal doctors was first introduced.

But the revival of herbal medicine began in earnest in April 1956, when the North Korean cabinet of ministers accepted Decree No. 37, which envisioned the incorporation of herbal medicine into the official medical system. At the same time, Kim Il-sung made a very positive reference to herbal medicine in his lengthy speech delivered to the KWP Third Congress. By the end of 1956, there were 10 herbal medicine centers operating across the country, and by 1960 the number had reached 332.

I think it was not without good reason that this sudden revival of the medical tradition took place in 1956. This was when the North began to steer itself away from its Soviet patron, whose new policy of de-Stalinization met with growing disapproval in Pyongyang. It was also the time when nationalist trends began to grow in the North _ partially because nationalism served the interests of Kim Il-sung and his group, but also because it resonated with the feelings and world view of common Koreans. This created a fertile soil for the rejuvenation of hitherto neglected traditions. It is not incidental that in later eras the initial rejection of herbal medicine came to be blamed on the ‘factionalists’ _ that is, people who did not share Kim Il-sung’s nationalism and his drive for heavy industry and a powerful army at all costs.

And there was another dimension as well. We have been accustomed to thinking of herbal medicine as more expensive than its Western counterpart, but back in the 1950s the opposite was the case. Generally, East Asian medicine, which relied on local herbs, tended to be cheaper and this mattered in a poor country with limited resources.

Around the same time, herbal medicine was encouraged by the South Korean authorities as well. They also saw it as a cheap palliative, a substitute for the “real” Western medicine which only a few South Koreans could afford.

And, last but not least, the basic ideas of herbal medicine resonated quite well with Kim Il-sung’s new policy of selfreliance.

In a sense, herbal medicine was an embodiment of self-reliance in health care.

Thus, the 1960s was a period of triumphal advance for Eastern medicine in the North. For a while herbalists were trained in junior colleges, but from 1960, Pyongyang medical college opened a traditional medicine department. A number of research centers were created with the task of fusing the achievements of Western and traditional medicine. From 1960, a state evaluation committee began to operate, and in that year 239 North Korean herbalists became “Eastern medicine doctors, first class,” while 1,495 had to satisfy themselves with their inferior standing of “Eastern medicine doctors, second class.”

Of course, the growth of herbal medicine was accompanied by claims about wonder drugs and miraculous discoveries, to which the Stalinist regimes were so vulnerable (suffice to remind ourselves of the Lysenko affair in the USSR, or the improbable claims of wonder harvests in Mao’s China).

But the domination of Dr. Kim Pong-han, North Korea’s Lysenko, lasted for merely six years. In 1960 he claimed that he had discovered a new principal type of centralized system in the human body, somewhat similar to a nerve system of blood circulation. There was much talk of this alleged discovery and related medical miracles, but from 1966 all references to Professor Kim suddenly disappeared from the Pyongyang press.

The subsequent decades witnessed a continuous growth in the herbal medicine endeavor, which frequently received direct encouragement and approval from the Great Leader himself (after all, Kim Il-sung’s father once was a part-time herbalist himself). The reasons for the policy remained the same, and even some statements by Kim Il-sung were remarkably frank.

In 1988 he said, “If we produce a lot of Koryo medicine drugs, it is good not only for curing diseases, but also for solving the drug problem, since it will reduce the importation of drugs from other countries.” More than a dozen colleges now train herbalists in the North, and from 1985 would-be Western doctors have also been required to take introductory classes in Eastern medicine.

Perhaps, in some post-unification world the North will become a major source of quality herbal doctors, and their presence will help to drive down prices for this service which many Koreans take so seriously. Who knows, but there are already North Korean herbalists working in the South.

Daily NK
Kim Min Se
3/14/2007

It is a well known fact that goods made in China are sweeping across North Korea with Chinese merchants taking the role of distributor.

However, Chinese merchants are not only exporting goods into North Korea but are also importing goods made in North Korea such as seafood, medicinal herbs, coal and minerals back to China.

Particularly, dried shellfish sells very well in China. As more and more Chinese merchants buy dried shellfish from North Korean markets, they play a critical role in the lives of North Korean citizens as sellers who are then able to raise the price due to demand. Every year, from April~Sept, people from the North-South Pyongan, Haean collect shellfish along the shore. 10kg of rice can be bought with 1kg of shellfish meat. Consequently, citizens of other regions also come to the beaches to collect shellfish.

If Chinese merchants did not import any goods and North Korea’s finest goods were not exported to China, the cost of goods at Jangmadang would increase exponentially. This is how close the relationship between the lives of North Korean citizens and Chinese merchants have become interconnected.

Significance of information runners

Though Chinese merchants are currently contributing to market stability, it does not necessarily mean that their existence will continue to be positive to North Korean authorities.

The people first to inform news of the Yongchun explosion in April 2004 to the outside world were Chinese merchants.

At the time, after confirming the lives their family members in North Korea, Chinese merchants who heard the explosion in Dandong gathered information about the explosion details from relatives in Shinuiju and Yongchun over mobile phones. Undoubtedly, news spread instinctively. The economic development zone, Dandong, which is at the mouth of the Yalu River is merely 10km from Yongchun.

Due to this incident, Kim Jong Il banned the use of mobile phones in North Korea. Chinese merchants have played a great role in the outflow of inside North Korean issues, a problem feared by North Korean authorities that contributes to the inflow of foreign information.

Recently, Chinese merchants have been charging a 20% fee involved in remitting dollars to defectors wanting to send money to family in North Korea. For example, if a defector wishes to send $1,000 to family in North Korea, a merchant will extract $200 and transfer the remaining $800 to the family.

As long as Chinese merchants have a specific identification card, they are free to travel between the North Korean-Chinese border and hence many defectors prefer to use Chinese merchants as the intermediary. Thanks to these merchants, many people can convey money and letters to family within North Korea.

In these respects, Chinese merchants are not only selling goods but are acting as information runners transporting news of the outside world into North Korean society.

As more and more North Koreans rely on markets as a means of living and trade between China and North Korea, the North Korean market will only continue to expand. We will have to wait and see whether or not Chinese merchants will have a healing or poisonous affect on the Kim Jong Il regime from here on in.

KCNA
3/6/2007

The hospital attached to Pyongyang University of Medicine has proved successful in the micro-operation of completely fractured arms and legs.

Researchers of the microsurgery laboratory under the Clinical Institute have developed a special suture needle, key of microsurgery, by themselves, and ultramicro-surgery technology. They are successfully stitching inner, middle and outer membranes of one-millimeter-thin blood vessels separately through the zoomed view of an operation microscope.

They have also succeeded in linking dozens of neural glands of the hair-like nerve trunk.

They have conducted thousands of micro-operations including one hundred and scores of operations for fractured limbs and skin, neural gland and living bone transplantation operations since they linked the fractured arm of a patient 15 year ago.

The researchers, basing themselves on the already-made successes, are developing cutting-edge fields of surgery from traumatic orthopedic surgery to blood vessel surgery, facial orthopedic surgery and visceral organ transplantation.