North Korean Economy Watch

Financial Times
Anna Fifield
9/19/2007

Pak Hyun-yong was, by North Korean standards, an entrepreneur. Too much of an entrepreneur. During the famine that ravaged the country in the late 1990s, Mr Pak watched his family die of starvation – first his younger brother, then his older sister’s children. Then, eventually, his sister too.

Somehow he pulled through this period, dubbed by the regime as “the arduous march”, and was spurred into taking some very non-communist, almost subversive action. He began selling noodles.

Every day he would take 10kg of “corn rice” – a poor North Korean imitation in which dried kernels are fashioned into grains – and turn it into noodles. Then he would get on his bicycle and pedal around his home town of Hamhung on the east coast, bartering the noodles for 12kg of corn rice: 10kg for tomorrow’s noodles and 2kg for his remaining family.

“The police would come by and try to persuade me not to sell the noodles, saying that I should not succumb to capitalism and that the Dear Leader would resolve our food shortages,” says Mr Pak, who escaped from North Korea a year ago and is upbeat and energetic considering the hardships he has endured.

Now 32, he is in hiding in a bleak, remote village in northern China not far from the North Korean border, together with his wife, with whom he escaped, and their new baby. They live in a one-room house with no bathroom – protected by locals who are helping them settle.

“The [North Korean] police even threatened to imprison me if I didn’t stop selling. Suddenly I realised that North Korea was a country where they would stop people’s efforts to survive,” he says, sitting on the warm floor of his house, still dressed in the apron he wears to work in a nearby butchery.

“I heard that China was a rich and modern country – that they had tractors and that people could eat rice every day, even in rural areas,” he says, shaking his head. “Chinese dogs wouldn’t eat our rice – they would ask for better.”

In almost 20 interviews along the border with China, ethnic Koreans born in China and North Korean escapees, some of whom had been in the isolated state as recently as two months ago, describe a country where change is taking place from the ground up rather than under the direction of its leader, Kim Jong-il.

North Korea remains the most tightly controlled state in the world. But recent escapees tell of the changes that are being driven by necessity in areas near China, especially in the cities of Rajin and Hoeryong in the north and Sinuiju at the southern end of the border.

While it would be an overstatement to say that this represents the type of nascent transition to free-market reforms that has occurred in countries such as Russia and China, the worsening state of the North Korean economy is leading to widespread trading and the emergence of a fledgling merchant class crossing into China, the escapees say.

Some agricultural markets – rather than just state markets – were permitted during the “economic improvements” of 2002, but ad-hoc markets have since sprung up around the country with the tacit approval, if not the encouragement, of the regime. These markets are now the backbone of North Korea’s creaking economy as the regime provides almost nothing by way of rations any more.

The parlous state of the economy is probably the driving factor behind Mr Kim’s decision to roll back his nuclear programme. The six-party denuclearisation talks are making surprisingly good progress, analysts say, as his regime seeks heavy fuel oil for its rusting industries and an end to economic sanctions.

Certainly, recent escapees from North Korea describe a desperate situation inside the country. Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 North Koreans are thought to be living in hiding in the north-eastern provinces of China, especially in Jilin and Heilongjiang, areas considered backward by Chinese standards.

The Financial Times travelled throughout this region to meet North Koreans while seeking to avoid endangering their lives. (North Koreans who are repatriated from China face detention in labour camps or worse, and even those who are not caught put the lives of family members at risk by talking to journalists. For that reason, names have been changed.)

“In Rajin, all the factories have stopped,” says Oh Man-bok, a 22-year-old who escaped in September from the city near the borders with Russia and China, considered relatively prosperous because it is one of the North’s main trading channels. “The men still have to go to work and have their name checked off but there is nothing to do. Sometimes they sit around and sometimes they go home. They don’t get paid but sometimes, in a good month, they get 15 days’ worth of corn in rations,” he says.

That means women are increasingly becoming the breadwinners, going to the mountains to collect edible plants or to the market to sell home-made snacks. “People survive by selling. They do whatever they can to earn money – selling fried dough sticks or repairing shoes and clothes,” Mr Oh says. “But it’s very difficult to earn enough to survive and even in Rajin, many people have to eat porridge made from the whey left over from making tofu.”

Rajin and Sinuiju, as the main thoroughfares for trade with China, have been more open than the rest of North Korea for some time, but the experiment with capitalism that has been taking place in these two cities now appears to be expanding to Hoeryong.

The city of Hoeryong can be clearly seen from the Chinese side of the border, which is marked by a shallow river only 20 metres wide in places. On the bridge between the two countries, the Financial Times watched North Korean trucks trundle into China and dozens of Chinese – and a few North Koreans wearing badges stamped with the image of Kim Il-sung, Mr Kim’s late father and founder of the state – lug bags across.

A Chinese border official says that about 100 a day cross the bridge from the Chinese side, mainly going to visit family members, although in summer as many as 300 go on tour packages to the beach on North Korea’s east coast. About 10 North Koreans a day cross into China for trading or to see their relatives. “With Rmb1,000 [$135, £65, €92] they can come to China even if they don’t have family here. So they often borrow money to come here and buy things for trading in the market in Hoeryong,” the official says.

Bribery appears to be becoming more widespread as trade and travel increases – from a few cigarettes needed to pass through internal checkpoints to the few hundred renminbi expected at border crossings. “Everyone wants to be a border guard these days,” says one Chinese-Korean trader. “They don’t explicitly say, ‘Give me money’ – they just keep going through your paperwork and asking you questions until you offer them money.”

Again, Pyongyang seems to be aware that this is happening and allows it as a way to keep people happy – rotating border guards every six months to give officials from around the country a chance to earn extra money, according to escapees.

In Hoeryong, the market used to be beside the bridge on the outskirts but this year it was moved to a school building right in the centre of town. Its 180,000 residents enjoy a relatively privileged existence because Kim Jong-il’s late mother was born there.

The market has become central to the city and to people’s lives, driven by grassroots demand, says Song Mi-ok, an ethnic Korean living in China who has made several trips to the city recently. She has gained access by visiting fake relatives, a family to whom she pays Rmb1,000 every time she pretends to visit them.

“You can find everything there,” she says of the market, which opens at 7.30am and closes at dusk. “People usually start by selling food that they have grown or made, using the profits to move into goods trading.”

North Koreans say one can buy everything in the markets “except cat horns”, as their expression has it. Rice given as aid from South Korea is on sale and people even display the bag – even though they risk having it confiscated by the authorities – because people know that South Korean rice is of high quality, Ms Song says.

One kilogram of rice in Hoer­yong market costs 900 North Korean won – a huge amount in a country where the average wage for a government employee is about between 3,000 and 4,000 won a month, or slightly more than one US dollar.

“There are a lot of people buying and it’s all money trade; there’s no bartering now,” Ms Song says. “North Koreans are poor, so it’s quite surprising to see people with a lot of money. They don’t receive money from the state – it’s all money they have made themselves.”

One Korean-Chinese man who visited relatives in Hoeryong last year also describes an increasingly active drug trade. It is not uncommon, he says, to be approached by people in their twenties or thirties selling a white narcotic called “ice” – probably a form of crystal methamphetamine. The drug fetches 20 times the North Korean price in China, making smuggling a lucrative business, but the punishment for drug trafficking in China is so severe that Hoeryong dealers try to sell it to visiting Chinese.

The markets are thriving thanks to new border regulations. While the number crossing illegally has dropped because of tighter restrictions in both countries, the number of North Koreans who are allowed to cross into China legally has steadily increased, according to several Korean-Chinese who help those who make it across the border.

North Koreans with relatives in China but not in South Korea are allowed to apply for passports to cross the border. This is creating a new group of migrant workers – those who are legal but working for themselves and their families rather than for the state. “Young people come here to work for one or two months and earn some money – they’re coming from Pyongyang as well as the regions,” says Ri In-chol, an ethnic Korean missionary from China who supports border crossers, legal or otherwise.

“They pay Rmb300-Rmb400 to get a passport and then they can cross. There is now a much freer flow because Kim Jong-il realises that this is the only way to keep the people alive. They take back money, used sewing machines and used clothes from their relatives that they can sell in the markets,” Mr Ri says.

Although Chinese clothes are most prevalent, North Koreans prefer South Korean products for their higher quality. “The labels have to be cut out of South Korean clothes, so if they don’t have a label then people assume that they’re South Korean and they like them more,” says another Chinese-Korean who has recently visited Rajin.

Indeed, Mr Ri says that North Korean officials are picky about what they will let through. “When North Koreans come to China they are allowed to take used clothes back. But when Korean-Chinese people want to give clothes to their relatives in North Korea, they have to be new because otherwise the officials think they are being looked down on,” he says. (Jeans and short skirts, seen as representative of American immorality, are still not allowed.)

The economic changes – particularly the lessening dependence on the state – are potentially destabilising for Mr Kim’s regime because they weaken the tools of control. That means that there is a fine line between what is permissible and what is not. “Kim Jong-il is tolerating this much openness because people need to survive, but if he wakes up one morning and sees capitalism is spreading too far, he will order it all to be stopped,” says Gao Jing­zhu, professor of Korean studies at China’s Yanbian University, near the border.

“North Korea is small, so if there is too much change it will threaten the sustainability of the regime and it will collapse,” Prof Gao says. “North Korea is in a dilemma.”

Good Friends, a Seoul-based civic group that monitors life inside North Korea, this month said Pyongyang was cracking down on women working in street markets. “The authorities have judged that female merchants have reached a point that threatens the country’s government,” Good Friends quoted a North Korean official in China as saying.

“The men are tied to their workplaces but they don’t receive proper rations,” the official reportedly said. “This has shifted the men’s burden of supporting their families on to the women. With trade directly linked to the people’s survival, the crackdown isn’t going well.”

Indeed, it may already be too late. The increased economic interaction with China means that the flow of information to North Koreans is steadily increasing. “People’s awareness and illusions have changed,” says one Chinese-Korean who drives trucks into North Korea.

This is just the kind of contact that threatens Mr Kim’s regime, which has kept the 23m-strong population under control by cutting off access to the outside world and telling them they live in a socialist paradise. Mr Ri, the missionary, says: “People living in open areas like Rajin and Hoeryong are more exposed to the outside world but that is not the case when you go further into North Korea. So even if it is becoming more open, you never know when that is going to change. They will still come after you if you are involved in political activities.”

But recent escapees from North Korea say that people are increasingly discussing – in private – one topic that they say would have been unimaginable until very recently: the eventual death of the Dear Leader. “State control is still as strong as before but now, when people gather together as families, they say that the system is really wrong. That never used to happen before,” says Mr Pak, the man who left Hamhung last year.

“Kim Jong-il always says he will feed the people and make them happy, but that has not happened. There are many people who hope that Kim Jong-il will die soon,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I have to admit it: the state is already kind of breaking down.”

Daily NK
Lee Sung Jin
11/16/2007

It is reported that the North Korean authorities have been regulating Jangmadang (markets) by placing age limit on who can do business in the market and controlling sales items and prices.

45-year old Ahn Hyuk Jun said in an interview with DailyNK conducted on Wednesday, “A decree is posted at the entrance to many markets in Pyongyang that the state would control sales prices and the quantity of sales items.” Ahn, a resident of Pyongyang, came to Yanji, China on November 4th to visit his relatives.

Mr. Ahn said, “According to the decree, the state forbids merchants from bringing out more than 15 items for sale and selling more than 10 kg of sea products in the market.”

The decree is another controlling measure of markets adopted by the state. Previously, the state has conducted a campaign to fight anti-socialist trends appearing in many market places. Moreover, it has banned female merchants who are under the age of 39 from doing business in the market. In Pyongyang, the age limit is 49. It seems that North Korea has adopted a rather extreme measure as both the number of people engaged in business and products circulated in the markets continue to increase.

However, few merchants would follow the new measure which limits sales items and prices because they cannot make a profit that way. It is certain that the new decree would likely turn out futile.

Mr. Ahn said, “For example, the decree lowered the price for octopus from 3,700 won/kg to 2,200 won/kg, and the price for flatfish from 3,500/kg to 1,800/kg.”

Ahn said, “No one in the market would abide by the state decree at the risk of losing profit,” adding, “many merchants would bring out items for sale that are low in quality and matches the state-imposed price anyway. However, a real business is done in a clandestine manner.”

According to Ahn’s explanation, the real business is done as follows. Many merchants on their way to the market stop at neighboring households and unload their sales items. Then they pay the households to keep their items there. At the market, they bring out low-quality items on sales stand, and post a sign with a list of real sales items right next the stand.

When there are customers checking the list, merchants approach to them and begin bargaining. Once it is done, they both come out of the market and go the household where the merchant hands over the asked item to their customers.

Ahn said, “Overall, many markets of Pyongyang are stagnant due to the state regulation on market transactions.” He added, “Many Pyongyang citizens argue that the state, instead of distributing food, should allow them to do business in the market so that they can make a living.”

“There is a rumor that Kim Yong Il was appointed as the prime minister because he pledged to close all markets,” Ahn said, “Many people worry that a man who lacks knowledge about how money works is now in charge of the nation’s economy.”

Good Friends, the Seoul-based relief organization dedicated to North Korea also reported yesterday that the North Korean authorities have lately produced a great amount of lecture material which bans business activities across the country.

According to the lecture material, the authorities asserted that market transactions would destroy North Korea’s own socialism from within and facilitate the infiltration of capitalism into the society. They urged that the state should strengthen mass ideological training in order to educate the public about why it is important to place age limit on who can do business in the market.

As mentioned earlier, North Korea has banned females under the age of 39 from doing business in the market. There is a rumor that the state would increase the age limit to 45 at the end of this year.

In North Korea most working age females are forced to work at factory complexes. In Pyongsung of South Pyongan Province, the state sends out a dispatch to local females under the age of 30 in order to have them work at neighboring factory complexes. However, few would actually work at the designated complexes because many complexes already have enough workers. Even if they could get a position at factories, it is reported that those employed barely receive wages and food distribution.

Daily NK
Yoon Il Geun
11/15/2007

Today is the day for the national academic aptitude test in South Korea. In North Korea, there is an entrance exam similar to that in the South, a so-called preliminary examination.

Applicants for admission to universities among senior-middle school students can get letters of recommendation to enter universities according to their test results. When applicable universities are decided for students, they should take the college-specific entrance exams.

There are four kinds of freshmen in North Korean universities: entrusted students (Uitaksaeng), employed students (Hyunjiksaeng), discharged soldiers (Jedaegunyin), and direct students (Jiktongsaeng).

Entrusted students are those who were entrusted or asked to study by a special government or military department. You can be entrusted after you work for the military, National Security Agency, United Front Department under the Workers’ Party or other especial offices for over 5 years. These kinds of departments send their experienced workers who have not yet acquired a bachelor’s degree but have good records to universities in order to promote them. They must return to their positions after graduation. These entrusted students do not need to take the preliminary examination.

Employed students are those who get recommendations to study at universities from their place of employment. Discharged soldiers also have a right to enter the university after completing military service. However, they must take the preliminary examination lead by the Students’ Recruitment Department under the People’s Committee in each city, county or province. After that they can take the entrance exam.

The Students’ Recruitment Department issues letters of recommendation to students according to how they rank on the preliminary examination. For instance, the first and second top-ranking students may be recommended for Kim Il Sung University, the 3rd and 4th ranked students for Kim Chaek University of Technology, those ranking from 5 to 15 may be recommended for universities in Pyongyang, and the rest of students can get the recommendations for local universities.

Direct students are those who enter universities right after they graduate from middle school. The graduation examination for middle school counts as the preliminary exam for direct students.

Since the conscription system was adopted in North Korea in 2002, senior middle school graduates, with the exception of special middle schools such as foreign language schools or No. 1 senior-middle schools, cannot enter universities directly due to their compulsory military service.

Students all over the country take the preliminary exam on the same day, and the graduation examination is also taken on a nationally appointed day. However, graduation examinations differ among senior middle schools.

Grading the exam is handled respectively by the each local university. During this process, bribes in return for raising scores are common. The situation is the same for preliminary exams as well.

Corruption revolving around the examination process is getting more serious. The number of students recruited is determined by a regional quota system. The Education Department distributes an allocated number of letters of recommendation for universities to each middle school.

When the quota for each university is handed down to the provincial recruitment office, cities and counties compete to get more recommendation rights for top universities. This is because the more students a county sends to the universities, the more kickbacks that county will receive.

But in the end, it is evident that money and power, rather than student achievement, present a more effective means of entering universities.

Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
11/15/2007

For six decades, the myth of unification as Korea’s supreme goal has been enshrined in the official mythology of both nations. The lip service to this myth is still paid by virtually all political forces in both Koreas, but the actual policy of both Pyongyang and Seoul nowadays is clearly based on a very different set of assumptions and hopes: both sides try to avoid situations which might lead to unification.

There are good reasons for this quiet change of policy. The gap between the Koreas is too great; depending on which calculations you believe the per capita gross domestic product in the South is between 15 and 40 times higher than that of the North. Perhaps, nowhere in the world one can find two neighboring countries whose income levels would be so vastly different – and in this case the two countries happen to speak the same language.

The North Korean rulers know perfectly well that in a unified country they would be unable to keep their privileges, and also are likely to be held responsible for decades of gross human-rights abuses and economic mismanagement. South Koreans are no more willing to unify with their impoverished brethren – unification of Germany where the initial situation was much better, became an ordeal, so the unification of Korea would clearly become a disaster.

Therefore, South Korean politicians are doing everything possible to support the dictatorship in Pyongyang, assuming that “stability” in the North is necessary for South Korean economic prosperity. Sufficient to say that some 40% of all grain consumed in North Korea is either received from the South or produced with the help of the mineral fertilizer shipped by Seoul free of charge.

This policy is usually explained as a way to “create the environment for Chinese-style reforms”. This indeed might be its long-term goal, but for all practical reasons the major immediate outcome of massive South Korean aid is a continuous survival of the Pyongyang dictatorship. The statement that a “German scenario is unacceptable” has become a mantra of Seoul politicians.

However, over the past decades, Kim Jong-il’s regime has not shown the slightest inclination to reform itself. Obviously, the Pyongyang elite believes that the Chinese model, so enthusiastically extolled by the good-wishers from Seoul, is not acceptable for them. Perhaps they are correct in their fears. The existence of a rich and free South, always presented as another part of the same nation, makes the situation in Korea quite different from that of China or Vietnam.

Chinese-style reforms, if undertaken by Pyongyang, are bound to produce a certain openness of the country and certain relaxation of political control. As a result, the North Korean populace will soon learn about South Korean prosperity and will be less afraid of the regime’s repressive machine. It’s questionable to what extent the North Koreans would be willing to obey a government whose track record has been so bad after they see an attractive alternative of the South.

Hence, North Korean leaders have made a rational decision: to keep stability and their own privileges, in recent years they have used foreign aid to roll back the changes which happened in the mid-1990s. Instead of reforms, they now do everything possible to limit or ban private economic activity and reassert their control over society.

Despite the government’s resistance to reform, the North Korean system is gradually crumbling from below, and this slow-motion disintegration might turn into an uncontrollable collapse in any moment. A sudden death of even a serious illness of Kim Jong-il is almost certain to trigger a serious crisis. If this happens, all bets are off, but it seems that a collapse of the system, Romanian or East German style, is one of the most likely outcomes.

This is what people in the South fear most. Indeed, unification might indeed spell economic and social disaster for the rich South. There are different estimates of the “unification costs”, the amount of money that would be necessary to close the yawning gap between the two Korean economies. The most recent estimate was made public last October. A report prepared by a committee at the South Korean National Assembly states that if unification happened in 2015, it would cost US$858 million to raise North Korean per capita income to half of the South Korean level. This is guesswork, of course, but everybody agrees that the amount of money necessary for reconstruction of the impoverished North could ultimately be counted in trillions of US dollars.

The “unification cost” is a hot topic, but many problems are of a social nature and have nothing to do with money issues. For decades, North Korea has remained one of the world’s most isolated regimes whose rulers once perfected Stalinism to the level undreamt of by Joseph Stalin himself. The population, with the exception of a tiny elite, has very vague and distorted ideas about the outside world.

North Korea is a well-educated society, but the technology and science they teach at the colleges is of 1950s vintage. The average North Korean engineer has never used a computer. Society has been conditioned to perceive the total distribution of goods and services as the norm, and experts seem to agree that the average North Korean defector in the South has serious problems when it comes to making consumer or career decisions for oneself (no such decisions are necessary or even possible under the North Korean system).

So, it is easy to see why South Koreans are so afraid of unification. However, history does not flow in accordance with human desires. If the North Korean state collapses, South Koreans will have few choices but to prepare themselves for unification at time and under circumstances which they would not be too happy about.

As the East European revolutions of 1989-1990 (or, for that matter, of nearly all popular revolutions) have demonstrated, once changes begin, nobody can control the pace and direction of events. Now it is time to think what should be done if an emergency happens and the North Korean regime follows the fate of nearly all regimes which once were its models and aspirations – Albania, Romania and the Soviet Union itself. When a crisis starts unrolling, it doesn’t leave much time for rational thinking.

Alas, any open media discussion of this subject remains taboo in the South. There are fears that such discussions might annoy the North, undermining inter-Korean detente. The Korean nationalist left, now (barely) in power, still believes that the Chinese solution is possible and “progressive”, and also perceives any talks about regime collapse in the North as a reminder of the official anti-communism of the past. The right is slightly more realistic, but it seems that its supporters are not too eager to discuss the difficulties such a turn of events could bring about.

It will be a simplification to think that South Koreans are completely unprepared for such an eventuality. Seoul government agencies do not like to talk about it, but it is clear that somewhere in government there are secret files with short-term contingency plans, to be put in motion in case of a power collapse in the North. However, these plans deal with immediate consequences of the crisis, especially with handling of refugees, and not with the long-term strategy of reconstruction, and this strategy is actually the hardest part of the task.

The major task is to smooth the transition, to make the shock of unification less painful and more manageable. It seems that one of the possible solutions is a confederation. The idea of confederation has been suggested many times before, but in most cases it was assumed that the two existing Korean regimes would somehow agree to join a confederative state. Needless to say, one has to be very naive to believe that the North Korean rulers could somehow co-exist with South Korea, which even in its worst times was a relatively mild dictatorship committed to a market economy (and become a liberal democracy two decades ago).

Such confederation is plainly impossible. However, in this case we mean a different type of state union, a provisional confederation, whose sole and clearly stated task would be to lay the foundations for a truly unified state and to cushion the more disastrous effects of North Korea’s transformation.

Such a confederation will become possible only when and if the North Korean regime changes dramatically, and a new leadership in Pyongyang will have no reasons to fear the influence of the democratic and capitalist South. In other words, only a post-Kim government can be realistically expected to agree to such a provisional confederation. It does not really matter how this government will come to power, whether through a popular revolution, a coup or something else. As long as this government (most unlikely, bowing to pressure from below) would be genuinely willing to unite with the South, it might become a partner at these negotiations and a participant of the confederation regime.

The confederation regime should make North Korea a democracy, one that introduces political freedoms and basic political rights. There should be an explicit statement about the length of the provisional confederation regime, and 10 to 15 years seems to be ideal. A longer period might alienate common North Koreans who will probably see it as an attempt to keep them from fully enjoying the South Korean lifestyle while using them as “cheap labor”. On the other hand, a shorter period might not be sufficient for any serious transformations.

One of the tasks of such a provisional system will be to control cross-border movement. South Koreans are now haunted by nightmarish pictures of millions of North Koreans flooding Seoul and other major cities, where they will push the South Korean poor from unskilled jobs or resort to robbery and theft. Such threats are real, and the confederation will make it relatively easy to maintain a visa system of some kind, with a clearly stated (and reasonable) schedule of gradual relaxation. For example, it might be stated that for the first five years all trips between the two parts of the new Korea will require a visa, and North Koreans will not be allowed to take jobs or long-time residency in the South. In the following five years these restrictions could be relaxed and then finally lifted.

South Korean fears of a North Korean crime wave might be well-founded – notoriously tough North Korean commandos indeed make ideal mafia enforcers. However, the North Koreans also should be protected from the less scrupulous of their new-found brethren – for example, from South Korean real estate speculators. In the case of uncontrolled unification, South Korean dealers will rush to buy valuable property in the North, a task which will not be too difficult in a country where $10 a month is seen as a good income.

South Korean dealers vividly remember what happened in Kangnam, former paddy fields which were turned into a posh neighborhood in southern Seoul. In some parts of Kangnam land prices increased more than a thousandsfold within a decade or so, making a lucky investor super-rich, and there are good reasons to believe that the price of land in Pyongyang or Kaesong could sky-rocket as well.

However, it is easy to predict the resentment of those North Koreans who will lose their dwellings for what would initially appear to be a fortune, but soon will come to be seen as small change. If real estate speculations are left uncontrolled, in a few years entire North Korean cities could become the property of South Korean dealers – with predictable consequences for relations between northerners and southerners. Hence, the provisional confederation regime, while encouraging other kinds of investment, should strictly control or even ban the purchase of arable land and housing in the North by South Koreans.

Another painful issue is that of land reform, distributing the land of state-run agricultural cooperatives among individual farmers. One of the major challenges would be claims of land owners who lost their property during the North Korean radical land reform of 1946. A majority of the dispossessed landlords fled to the South in 1945-1953 when some 1.5 million inhabitants of the North crossed the border between the two Koreas. Their descendants now live in the South and, as both anecdotal evidence and some research testify, carefully kept the old land titles. It is just a minor exaggeration to say that an arable plot in the North usually has an aspiring landlord residing in Seoul. These claims remain technically valid since the Republic of Korea has never recognized the North Korean land reform of 1946.

For generations, the North Koreans have been told by their government that the collapse of the communist regime will bring back the nasty landowners who have been laying in wait in the South. If in this particular case the propaganda statements are correct, this would produce a very serious negative impression on North Koreans, further increasing their alienation and disappointment.

Under protection of the confederation regime, a land property system could be redesigned, or rather created from scratch. The recognition of the 1946 land reform and its results is a necessary first step. To placate former owners, some partial compensation might be paid, even though the present author is not certain whether grandchildren of former landlords, usually rich and successful men and women, are really in dire need of such compensation.

As the next step, the cooperative property should be distributed among its members, preferably among the people who are really present in their villages (perhaps, a free rent system might be the first step). At any rate, by the end of the confederation period, land and real estate in North Korean should be safely privatized, with North Korean residents (and, perhaps, recent defectors) being major or even sole participants in this process.

One of the more controversial parts of the package might be a general amnesty for all crimes committed under the Kim family regime. This is especially necessary because the fear of persecution seems to be one of the reasons which keeps the North Korean elite, including its lower ranks, united around the inefficient and brutal regime. They believe that collapse of the Kims’ rule will mean not only the bend of their privileges (which actually are quite small – only a handful of top officials enjoy a really opulent lifestyle in North Korea), but they are more afraid of judicial persecution and even mob violence.

It is not incidental that North Korean officials and guides in Pyongyang ask one foreign visitor after another about the fate of former East German bureaucrats. Indeed, despite considerable liberalization in recent years, the regime remains exceptionally brutal, and its officials have no illusions about this. Unfortunately, this fear of persecution has kept the murderous regime going for the past decade or so and led to many more deaths.

One might argue that such unconditional amnesties to all Koreans is probably “unethical”. Perhaps, but let’s face it: the sheer scale of the crimes committed makes any serious and fair investigation impossible. About half million people have been in prison during those decades, and many more exiled, and nobody will be capable of investigating all these cases carefully and impartially. A great number of people have been directly or indirectly involved with the human-rights abuses, and again, it is impossible to investigate a few hundred thousand former officials who by the nature of their job might have been responsible for some criminal actions. Hence, only partial, selective symbolical (and therefore largely politically motivated) justice can be served at best.

A general amnesty would solve two problems: first, it will make former North Korean bureaucrats less willing to resist changes; second, it would diminish the scale of intrigue and manipulations, since people would not be fighting to avoid the fate of arbitrarily chosen scapegoats. It should become part of the law, and to be taken seriously the amnesty should be made as straightforward and unequivocal as possible.

Of course, amnesty does not mean complete forgiveness. There might be restrictions for former party and secret police officials to occupy certain positions in a post-Kim Korea (a policy pioneered by Eastern Europe). It might be a good idea to create non-judiciary commissions to investigate former abuses, like it was done in post-apartheid South Africa. This commission might lead to truly awful discoveries, but the promise of amnesty should be kept even if it will become clear that North Korean prison camps were not much different from Adolf Hitler’s Auschwitz or Pol Pot’s Tuol Sleng in Cambodia.

The confederation treaty also should include some legal measures which will make certain that North Koreans will not remain the source of “cheap labor”, to be used (and abused) by South Korean businesses.

For example, the military of the two Koreas should be integrated first, and there should be large quotas reserved for former North Korean servicemen in the united army. Politically, the North Korean military might become a hotspot of social discontent: the 1.2 million-strong North Korean armed forces probably lack the skills necessary for modern warfare, but this force consists of professionals who have not known anything except the barracks life and intense nationalist indoctrination. If former military officers are given commissions in the post-unification forces, their skills and zeal will find a good and useful outlet. Otherwise, the very same people are likely to join the ranks of organized crime.

It is also important to provide large admission quotas for North Korean youngsters at major South Korean universities. Korean society is both hierarchical and meritocratic, and being a graduate of a major Seoul school is a necessary condition of entry for nearly all important jobs. It is not incidental that the entire life of a middle-class South Korean family is often designed to facilitate exam preparations for the children.

Unfortunately, for decades to come even the most gifted North Koreans will be unable to compete on equal terms with much better prepared South Korean students, and this means that they can realistically hope to get only to lower-level universities, usually in the North. Both actual and perceived quality of education in those schools will remain relatively low for decades, and this will ensure that North Koreans, even with “new” college-level education, will be permanently relegated to subaltern positions. Hence, affirmative actions are necessary, even if such measures are certain to provoke an hysterical outcry from Seoul and Busan parents.

The confederation regime will help to solve another important problem – that of the North Korean middle class. As East Europe demonstrated, a majority of active supporters of democracy and reform has come from local-educated urban groups, a close analogue of the Western “middle class”. The same is likely to happen in Korea.

However, the same people will become very vulnerable after unification. Who will hire an engineer who has not seen a computer? What can be taught by a social science teacher who spent his or her college years memorizing Kim Il-sung’s genealogical tree and the “Dear Leader’s” asinine pronouncement on everything, from rice planting to nuclear physics? Who will visit a former North Korean doctor whose medicine is essentially on the 1950s level?

During the confederation regime, special efforts could be made to re-educate those people, at least partially, preparing them for a new environment while still allowing them to continue their professional work in the North. Most of them will be unable to adjust, unfortunately, but at least the 10 or 15 years leniency will give a chance to the lucky and determined few, and will also provide others with time to find other ways to make a living.

The confederation model does have serious shortcomings. For example, there are good reasons to believe that the new North Korean political elite will consist largely of Kim-era officials (or their children) who will retain their old habits, including that of corruption and inefficiency. A Northern democratic government would be prone to populist decisions, based on pressure from below, and North Koreans are likely to have particularly naive views on how their society and economy can and should operate, so some mistakes introduced via popular vote might become ruinous and costly.

But no ideal solution is possible. One should not harbor too many illusions. The recovery of North Korea will be prolonged and painful. Even if unification happens tomorrow, the difference between the two Koreas will remain palpable until 2050, if not longer. Tensions, misunderstanding and even outright hostility between northerners and southerners are bound to continue for a long time.

There are no easy and simple solutions. But the current state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely, and it is time to think how unavoidable problems can be mollified. The current policy of Seoul administrations merely helps to postpone the problems created by Korea’s division, and the disastrous choices made by the North half of the country. But sooner or later, Korea and the entire world will have to face these problems – and solve them.

Daily NK
Moon Sung Hwee
11/11/2007

A source inside North Korea reports that most of the country’s complex microbial fertilizer factories built during the mass starvation period in 1990s for increase of food production have been shut down.

The source said, “Those factories built between 1996 and 1997 in Kyongsung county of North Hamkyung Province had produced fertilizers only for one year following the construction. The year after, they were shut down. Now, the factory buildings are cleared”

North Korean media has praised till quite recently about North Korea’s advanced technology for producing complex microbial fertilizers. They said that the country’s fertilizer-producing technology and nature farming methods helped solve the food crisis and protect the ecosystem of North Korea. South Korean media have also once positively reported upon North Korea’s new fertilizer-producing technology.

However, the source said, “The situation is pretty much the same across the country. Most factories had stopped operating the year after the construction. It was Kim Jong Il who gave orders to build those fertilizer plants. But many factories fell into ruins.”

North Korea had built more than one hundred complex microbial fertilizer plants throughout the country during the mass starvation period in 1990s because it needed quite an amount of fertilizers to increase crop production.

The agricultural technology, which uses complex microbial fertilizers is a natural farming method developed by Dr. Teruo Higa, a professor at Ryukus University, Okinawa, Japan and the founder of Effective Microorganisms(EM) technology. Since complex microbial fertilizers contain 100 times more nutrients than ordinary fertilizers, they are used in many places in South Korea such as Yichu city of Kyungki Province where environment-friendly agriculture method is being practiced.

When crop production rapidly decreased in the mid 1990s, the failure was attributed to soil acidification, and Kim Jong Il urged his people to spread burnt soil, decomposed grass and compound fertilizers composed of soil, manure and chemical fertilizers over the field.

Unfortunately, that did not work. Then, Kim Jong Il gave another order to produce complex microbial fertilizers in large quantities in an attempt to increase crop production. Upon his order, North Korea started promoting the construction of complex microbial fertilizer plants through Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan) and built more than one hundred factories nationwide for the period of one year including ‘Patriotic Center for Complex Microorganism,’ whose construction work was completed in June, 1997.

Many North Koreans had to use pure grain to make complex microorganisms instead of costly granulated sugar. However, that was a bad idea because there was food shortage across nation and a great number of people were staving to death. Moreover, North Korea should not have wasted grain for microorganism production in such situation because it takes three years to see any effect of the use of microorganisms on crop production.

Kim Yong Hwa (pseudonym), a defector from Hyesan city of Yangkang Province, who used to work at ‘Patriotic Center for Complex Microorganism’ said, “350 kg of corn is used to make one ton of fermentation solution. That amount of corn is sufficient enough to feed one person for an entire year. Overall, the plant had used 38 tons of corn during its first two- year operation.”

The defector said, “The workers received food ration, but it wasn’t enough. So, many people stole corn power and even fermentation solution from the factory.” The defector added, “When people heard that we were using corn to make fertilizers, they found it hard to believe at first, but soon flared up in anger, saying ‘those microorganisms are eating us.’”

The defector said, “In addition, we did not know what to do with microorganisms we had produced because we didn’t have gas and a means of transportation. Sometimes, containers for storing microorganisms were lost or broken. We also had difficulty to move around microorganisms because they were produced in liquid form.”

Kim said the locals did not believe the expert’s explanation that microorganisms would produce germs three years later, which produce nitrogen gas, and therefore make soil rich. He said that the locals disapproved the use of corn for the production of microorganisms, and had no interest in sowing microorganisms in the field. Therefore, Kim said, the plant had to close.

South Korean experts have continued to point out the problem of soil acidification in North Korea and encourage the use of organic fertilizers. Nevertheless, many defectors criticized the use of grain for the production of complex microbial fertilizers for being detached from the realities of food situation in North Korea.

Lee Min Bok, a defector who used to work at North Korean Academy of Agricultural Science, said, “Staring with 1979, soil acidification became a serious problem, and Kim Jung Il has been giving orders to improve soil condition. The use of microorganisms can better the condition to some extent. However, North Korea needs to come up with comprehensive policies on its agricultural structure, anti-flood afforestation, and the establishment of production systems for chemical and organic fertilizers to solve the acidification problem.”

The source inside North Korea said, “In 1996, the authorities began praising about the effect of complex microbial fertilizers. Disappointedly, there weren’t any significant effect. So, starting with 1999, many fertilizers plants began to shut down.” The source added, “Most plants fell into ruin except few large factories such as Patriotic Center for Complex Microorganism in Pyongyang and a fertilizer plant in Rasun.”

North Korea began to display an interest in the production of complex microbial fertilizers because it had failed to produce enough manure and chemical fertilizers before. The South Korean government agreed to provide North Korea with 300,000 tons of chemical fertilizers this year and 400,000 tons next year.

According to Rodong Shinmun (North Korean state newspaper), Kim Jong Il spoke about the worldwide decrease in the production of chemical fertilizers, and stressed the importance of the use of microbial fertilizers in May, 2004.

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
11/5/2007

Forty-year old Park Sung Jin (pseudonym), a cloth merchant in Chongjin lately went to Tumun in Jilin Province, China under the pretext that he would visit his relatives there. He looked for Chinese business partners and tried to find items he can sell.

It took guts for Mr. Park to venture a trip to China. However, his efforts might turn out to be fruitless.

Mr. Park needed to get a border pass to go to China, and it costs him a great fortune. The pass allowed Mr. Park to visit his pre-determined destination only once. He paid 1 million North Korean won (approx. US$340) for the pass which he applied for in February, 2006 and received in August, 2007. If he wanted to have it within six months, he had to pay about 4,000 Yuan (approx. USD560).

Applicants for the pass also need to bribe the officials of People’s Committee and Security Agency because they are in charge of issuing visas to China. In fact, Mr. Park had to spend extra money on bribery to go to China for business.

Since it was Mr. Park’s first time to apply for the visa, he went through a relatively simple visa procedure. As for those who apply for the visa more than once, more complicated procedure is waiting. They are asked to state what they had done during their first visit to China.

If Mr. Park is issued a passport by any chance, he can go to many places for long periods of time. Unfortunately those over the age of 45 are more likely to get a passport (Mr. Park is forty). Moreover, the eligibility for the issue of a passport is much more complicated and it costs big fortune to get one. For instance, those who apply for the issue of a passport are supposed to pay $40 for application fee. However, the applicants need to spend extra money on bribes and other things, and for the most time end up spending more than $500 to get a passport.

Mr. Park is now busy visiting relatives and business partners. He is determined to make money as much as possible during his stay in China so that he can get his money’s worth upon his return home.

There are more theft incidents in Hoiryeong than ever

Lately, 45-year old An Myong Sook, a resident in Hoiryeong city, never hangs out the wash to dry outside. She tells her 15-year daughter not to forget to lock the doors when she leaves home because there are so many thieves in her neighborhood.

Since last year, the construction of apartments and roads has been underway around her area in order to commemorate the 90th birthday of Kim Jong Suk (the late mother of Kim Jong Il). For the construction, many outside workers came to her area, and some of them have broken into neighboring houses.

After having repaired the road laid behind the statue of Kim Jong Suk, the workers have started building the road between Hoiryeong and Chongjin since June. Many workers came to Hoiryeong from Rajin, Chongjin, Kilju, and Hamheung.

However, ever since the outside workers came to Hoiryeong in June, the number of households which lost their belongings or livestock has increased. The local people of Hoiryeong are increasingly complaining that the increase in rice price and theft has to with the presence of the outside workers.

Accordingly, the North Korean authorities have strengthened the punishment for theft. In the past, stealing was considered as a petty misdemeanor. Nowadays, that guilt of theft is sent to labor training facilities. The authorities confiscate all stolen items sold to the third person.

However, it is difficult to get back basic supplies such as clothes once they are stolen, and therefore every household in Hoiryeong is on the alert for theft.

Daily NK
Moon Sung Hwee
11/1/2007

A source familiar with issues inside North Korea said on the 30th, “Most of the underground tunnel of Hyesan Youth Mine in Yangkang Province is now under water.” The source added, “Ever since Samsoo Hydroelectric Power Station started filling up the dam last year, the mine began to flood, and now it can not operate properly.”

Hyesan mine produces 80 percent of the country’s copper. North Korea expects that the mine could produce copper for the next forty years. Hebeisheng-Luanhe Industry in China once attempted to buy 51 percent shares of the Hyesan Youth Mine. However, this was unsuccessful due to opposition from North Korea’s second Economic Commission, which manages the military economy.

North Korea began the construction of Samsoo Hydroelectric Power Station in February of 2004, mobilizing thirty thousand troops of the so-called “Shock Brigade for the Propaganda of the Party Ideology” every year. Unfortunately, Samsoo Power Plant became the major cause of the flooding of Hyesan Mine.

If this mine is inundated with water, North Korea has to import huge amounts of copper. It was the Propaganda and Agitation Department that led the construction of Samsoo Power Plant, which generates 50,000 kilowatts of power and is now causing the flooding. It is absurd that North Korea is about to lose its principal copper mine because of Samsoo Power Plant, a facility that was primarily constructed for political purposes.

Jung You Sim (37, pseudonym), a defector from Hyesan who came to South Korea in July of this year, stated that “Hyesan Mine is almost abandoned. It takes about three years to fill up the Samsoo Dam with water. Even now, there is difficulty in pumping out the water leaked from the power plant. Once the dam is completely filled, the total volume of water will be 1,300 million cubic meters. By then, the water pressure will have made it impossible to pump out the water that has infiltrated the mine. North Korea must choose either Samsoo Power Plant or Hyesan Mine.”

Samsoo Power Plant was constructed in Jangan-ri of Hyesan, Yangkang Province; Hyesan Mine is located nearby in Masan-dong.

The construction of Samsoo Power Plant which began in February 2004 evoked a great deal of controversy from the beginning. The Guidance Department of the Party and the Ministry of Extractive Industries opposed the construction citing the high risk of flooding in the Hyesan Mine.

However, Jeong Ha Cheol, then Secretary of Propaganda and Agitation Department and Choi Choon Hwang, then vice director of the Central Committee of the Party pushed hard for the construction with the aim of boosting their political standing and succeeded in obtaining Kim Jong Il’s approval. It is almost certain that both men have been purged.

At that time, the Propaganda and Agitation Department reported that the water leakage could be prevented if the bottom of the power plant dam is pressed hard and cemented with mud about three meters deep. However, experts from France who inspected the area opposed the construction because the land itself was calcareous and unstable. The water leakage was inevitable.

First explored in the 1960s, Hyesan Mine produces 10,000 tons of copper concentrates annually. When Gapsan Dongjum Mine, explored during the Japanese colonial period, was finally depleted and closed in 1990, Hyesan Mine became the lifeline of the nation’s copper production. It flooded before in the mid 1990s but was restored shortly thereafter.

At that time, the mine flooded because the pumping device stopped operating due to the lack of electricity across the country. Although the workers at the mine did their best to pump the water, they could not stop the water flowing into the mine at a speed of 480㎥/hour. In January, 1997, Hyesan Mine flooded again, as did other mines throughout the country, and lost all mining facilities.

The workers faced insurmountable obstacles in trying to save the mine. This was because some workers at Hyesan mine had removed the copper from pumping devices and had smuggled it to China before the flood hit the country.

When the officials from the Ministry of Extractive Industries visited Hyesan Mine in 1999, they informed the local cadres that the mine’s copper production had become insufficient for the manufacture of military supplies, and as a result, copper would have to be imported from Chile.

Defectors coming from Yangkang Province said that when Kim Jong Il paid a visit to the mine in October, 1998 and received the report on the difficulties in the mine’s operation, he said, “We must save the mine at any cost. I will supply the money.” At once, the chief secretary of Yangkang Province and the Ministry of Extractive Industries took charge of restoring the mine and organized the recovery workforce.

Kim Jong Il provided the so-called “Revolutionary Fund” for the mine’s recovery. He sent $ 3.8 million in 1998 and $2.6 million in 2001, paid all in cash. In 1998 when a great number of people were starving to death, corn was available in China for $ 137 per ton. The amount of money spent on the mine’s recovery could have been used to purchase approximately 28,000 tons of corn. In those days, the local residents in Yangkang Province were made to listen to lectures about the ‘General’s Revolutionary Fund’ over and over.

Upon the order for recovery, residents in Masan 1-dong and 2-dong in Hyesan city were mobilized every weekend to dig out the dirt in the mine. By May 1, 2003, the locals had dug to a depth of 710 m. Later that year, the mine produced 1,500 tons of copper concentrates, and in 2004 it produced 3000 tons.

The local people made huge sacrifices to recover Hyesan mine, and the recovery cost about $ 7 million. However, it was all in vain. The mine is now again flooded due to the construction of Samsoo Power Plant. Hyesan defector Jung Yoon Sim said that Kim Jong Il later changed his tone when he visited Yangkang Province and heard about the recent flooding, saying “it was anticipated.”

Samsoo Power Plant can produce up to 50,000 kilowatts of power. However, about 60,000 kilowatts of power are needed to supply electricity to the apartment complexes constructed in 2003 in Samjiyun county of Yangkang Province.

After all was said and done, Kim Jong Il had mobilized 30,000 people for three and a half years and had them work 14 hours per day while providing a mere 580 grams of grain daily in an attempt to build a power plant that generates only 50,000 kilowatts. In doing so, he destroyed the nation’s leading copper production center.

President Roh praised such an incompetent and irresponsible man as “a charismatic leader who has a deep understanding about the affairs of the country and has faith in the system.”

Yonhap
10/26/2007

North Koreans have been suffering from chronic job shortages due to worsening economic conditions and a recent move by North Korean authorities to limit the number of hawkers for fear of capitalism spreading in the isolated, communist state, an aid group said Friday.

The North has recently forbidden women under the age of 40 from selling merchandise on their own, Good Friends said in its latest newsletter. The previous age limit was 30.

Daily NK
Lee Kwang Baek
10/26/2007

Mr. “Kim,” who lives in Pyongyang, lost a foot in an accident in the army. After his discharge, he became a 1st-class Honorary Soldier of merit living on provisions and bonuses supplied by the nation. The wounded soldiers are named as “Honorary Soldiers” in North Korea. Even before the great famine, Mr. Kim and his family could survive on provisions and bonuses alone. However, after the worsening of the economic situation, they fell into serious hardship.

Nowadays, Mr. Kim steps outside every morning, dragging his one foot, because he has to buy noodles at the “Sunkyokak (a noodles restaurant)” that sells honorary soldiers at a state-assigned price of 230 won. Mr. Kim, who is a first-class honorary soldier, can buy two bowls of noodles at one time.

There is no limit on the number of times one can buy a bowl of noodles. However, with the increase in honorary soldiers living on the profit from noodles bought and resold, the number of bowls Mr. Kim can buy from standing in line all day is only four. Even then, he can sell a bowl which he bought for 230 won for 1,000 and can go home with a slightly upward amount of 3,000 won after selling four bowls.

The subsidies Mr. Kim receives as an honorary soldier every month is 3,000 won. That only comes out to 100 won per day, not even sufficient for a bowl of noodles from Sunkyokak. The cost of living for a family of four is usually 100,000 won (approx. USD30.0), so it is not enough to get by for a month. If one can earn one month’s worth of bonus in a day by selling noodles, there is nothing he can do, besides sell them, but to stand in line all day on crutches.

Until now, North Korea has poured a lot of energy to support for honorary soldiers. After the Korean War, it has guaranteed jobs for soldiers by erecting the Distinguished Soldier Fountain Pen Factory, the Sariwon Honorary Soldier Dressmaker Factory, the Hamheung Honorary Soldier Plastic Products Factory, etc. and to soldiers who have lost their ability to work, it has given provisions and bonuses. Further, it has advertised support for honorary soldiers as the “citizen’s responsibility” and has sought out civilian support.

However, recently, according to North Korean sources, among the guests who come to the Sunkyokak, approximately half are honorary soldiers who resell the noodles. The honorary soldiers demonstrate the fact that survival based on provisions and bonuses alone are impossible.

After the food shortage, an important transformation has taken place in North Korea. The number of people relying on national provisions decreased by around 30% and the rest were placed in situations where they could not survive on provisions, salaries, and bonuses provided by the state alone. At least 100,000 won is needed for monthly living costs, but the salary and bonus that the state can provide is only several thousand won. North Korea has become a society where honorary soldiers who had received the state’s special consideration and support now have to sell whatever they can to survive.

In order to buy four bowls of noodles, Mr. Kim, who has to stand on crutches all day, is the testament of North Korea’s economic system which has crumbled since the food shortage and the rapid deteriorate of whatever grip it does have.

Institute for Far Eastern Studies
NK Brief No. 07-10-23-1
10/23/2007

DPRK authorities are quick to stress that not one single unemployed worker can be found in Socialist North Korea. The truth is, however, unemployment has existed in the past, and now out-of-work laborers are taking on a new form.

With the exception of a small minority of North Koreans, most citizens are assigned professions and dispatched to their place of employment by DPRK authorities with no regard to personal aptitude or skills. This has led to the refusal of some to take assignments in mines, shipyards, and other undesirable factories, creating a group of ‘non-workers’.

However, today’s unemployed are different from the unemployed found in the 1980s and 90s. In the past, these workers refused positions at undesirable factories. In the late 1990s, with the cessation of food rations and lack of job positions, a good number of factories and businesses shut down operations, leading to an increase in unemployment. Now, it is the mines, companies, and yards that are refusing to take on new workers.

Currently, North Korean authorities are tasking managers of organizations and companies with the responsibility of feeding employees. Anyone with the skills and the money can become a manager. Authorities assess whether someone can provide wages and rations for employees, and if so, will put them in charge. However, the order that “Managers not able to carry out the task of feeding [employees] will be released or demoted” has been passed down, putting a considerable burden on executives and managers. As they are now responsible for both the wages and the rations of their employees, these managers are not looking to take on new workers. This is problematic for those dismissed from military service with little or no trade skill, and for those receiving only a middle-school education, especially women. These citizens are turning to trade to provide a living.