North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE 1: Hat tip to a reader in the commentsection…Mr. Park was given honorary citizenship to the city of Pyongyang, not to the DPRK. This is the DPRK equivalent of getting the “key to the city”.

ORIGINAL POST: Here is the certificate of authenticity (as reported by Yonhap):

This award was given to the head of Pyonghwa Motors (now for sale).

Here is more information from Yonhap:

The head of inter-Korean automaker Pyeonghwa Motors said Tuesday that he was made an honorary citizen of Pyongyang late last year to reflect his contribution to North Korea’s development.

In an interview with Yonhap News Agency, Park Sang-kwon said he received the citizenship at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in the North Korean capital on Dec. 18.

Park has led the carmaker that started off as a joint venture between South Korea’s Tongil Group, run by the Unification Church, and North Korea. Production began in 2002, with the company producing about 2,000 vehicles every year.

He said his citizenship has a serial number of 002 and has an inscription saying that the honor is being bestowed because of his contribution to the fatherland and the Korean people. He is the first foreign national to have received the honor under the communist country’s new leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim Chin-kyung, the Korean-American president of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology was the first to receive an honorary citizenship in Aug. 2011 by late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“The reason why they gave me the citizenship reflects recognition for the trust I have shown them and may be a sign that they want me to more freely engage in business activities,” he said. Park claimed that the citizenship can be seen as a sign that the North will allow him to start a new business in the country.

He then said that the reason why Tongil decided to turn over management of the carmaker last November was so it could focus on a wholly-owned business operation in the country. Last year, the business group created by late Rev. Moon Sun-myung also agreed to hand over control of the Pothonggang Hotel in Pyongyang.

The executive said he had asked the North to approve such a step.

“Pyeonghwa Motors has been generating profit for the past five years,” Park said. The businessman said that in the future, he wants to engage in the distribution of household necessities in North Korea, and in particular to Pyongyang.

He said there is a need to show that a wholly-owned (outside-invested) company that is not tied to a joint venture project with a North Korean partner can succeed in the country, which can act as an incentive for other foreign companies to invest.

He pointed out that Chinese companies that invested in the North are generally those that have not done well at home. He said that successful South Korean, Japanese and U.S. companies need to engage in business activities in the North.

“If 200 competitive South Korean companies operate in the North, there would be no reason for inter-Korean tensions, and it can actually help push forward the unification process,” he said.

Park, meanwhile, said the North is looking into the option of developing a ski resort near the 768 meter high Masik pass near the city of Wonsan on the east coast.

He said that United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea mentioned the development plan in December and claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gave the order personally. Kim has been running the country since the sudden death of his father Kim Jong-il in Dec. 2011.

“The North seems to want to develop a small ski resort first and build this up depending on demand,” he said.

The businessman added that Pyongyang wanted to transform Wonsan into a special tourist zone and is interested in using a military airfield near the city to accept civilian flights carrying tourists. Wonsan is famous for its beaches and if a ski resort is opened on Masik pass, it could attract tourists year round.

Park claimed Kim Jong-un has gained confidence in managing the country in the last year and may move to increase investments into the tourism sector.

UPDATE 1 (2013-1-28): The Koryo Tours Facebook Page has an image of the KoryoLink poster at Sunan Airport:

ORIGINAL POST (2013-1-22): According to NK News:

According to Richie Fenner, a tour manager at China based Young Pioneer Tours who reported the news today, explained that GPS enabled devices are allowed in the country. He told us:

“When we were coming in on the train, they asked us to show us our phones. The customs official asked if the first one he looked at had GPS, which it didn’t, so he handed it back. But then with the iPhones and other modern phones when we told them they had GPS, he just handed them back and gestured that we just put them in our bag.”

Thinking that the phones might just be sealed upon the group’s arrival to Pyongyang, Fenner explained that to his surprise the local guides explained a new policy meant that foreigners can now keep their cell phones in their possession. But that didn’t mean they could be used. Fenner explained, “Wthout a North Korean sim card, the phones are useless. I asked if we could get North Korean SIM cards and our guide said that it might be possible in the future”.

American tourist Sato Shi who joined the tour group by plane (U.S. citizens may not take the train) confirmed that the policy has been applied to the airport, too. “When we went to the customs they were checking our bags, saw my cellphone and then just gave it back to me and said “Hey, just keep it with you”.

Smartphones such as the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy are a rare commodity in North Korea. Fenner explained that his North Korean colleagues were very interested in trying them and playing games throughout the tour. “It’s all very new for them, I don’t think they’ve seen iPhones and Smartphones before”.

Given the lack of SIM cards and network access, the Young Pioneer tour group explained they could only really use their phones to take photos, play games, and use as an alarm. Young Pioneers today explained on their website that the news shows North Korea’s intent to “make tourism easier and a larger part of the economy”.

Xinhua reports some additional details:

“Just fill a registration form at the Customs with your phone’ s IMEI number, you can bring your own phones to DPRK,” said a unnamed Egyptian technician.

“If you want to make international calls, the WCDMA 3G mobile phone owners can purchase our Koryolink SIM card, which costs 50 euro,” the technician said.

For decades before, foreigners visiting the DPRK must leave their cellphones at the Customs and can pick them up on departure.

“We have tried hard to negotiate with the Korean security side, and got the approval recently,” said the Egyptian, noting that “it has nothing to do with the Google trip.”

In fact, foreigners still can not really use the Koryolink 3G network, with no internet access allowed yet. The Koryolink staff said that the mobile internet service for foreigners will be opened soon. “It is not a technical problem, we just wait for the DPRK authority’ s approval.”

There are 1.8 million Koreans using 3G cellphones across the country since 2008, which supports MMS and video call. But their mobile phones can neither make international calls nor connect to the Internet. Furthermore, Koreans and Foreigners can not make calls between each other due to their SIM cards set by different segments.

Kyodo offers video of people purchasing the KoryoLink SIM cards:

NK News reports the new price structure:

1. Purchase: These cards will be valid indefinitely and can be used for repeat visits. The cost for these will be 50 euro with a nominal amount of prepaid call money included.

2. Two Week SIM Card “rental”: Costing 50 euros, these cards can be used for two weeks before becoming invalid. They include 30 euro of prepaid service.

3. One month rentals: These cost 75 euro and include 55 euro of prepaid service.

Call rates:

– China and South East Asia- 1.43 Euro a minute

– Russia- 0.68 Euro a minute

– France and Switzerland- 0.38 Euro a minute

– UK and Germany- 1.58 Euro a minute

Other rates including the U.S have yet to be confirmed

UPDATE: A friend sent in a picture of the rates (2014). the rates do not appear to have changed:

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2013-1-17

China’s Ministry of Commerce reportedly sent about 70 specialists to North Korea to provide “joint consulting” services for Rajin and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands joint special economic zones (SEZs).

According to Yonhap News, about 70 specialists from the Department of Commerce of Jilin Province were dispatched to North Korea a few months ago to work on the China-DPRK joint venture projects. Their main focus is to discuss the management and legal systems of the SEZs, promotion of foreign investment, and share over 30 years of China’s experience on opening and reform.

The Department of Commerce of Jilin Province is directly under the Commerce Ministry. Chinese officials are going between Rajin, Sinuiju (near Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands), and Pyongyang areas to negotiate on specific management measures concerning the SEZs.

Since Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC) Jang Song Thaek visited China in August 2012, the two countries have reached an agreement and established joint management committee in Rason and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands. Since then, briefing sessions have been hosted in major Chinese cities to promote investment in North Korea.

Many speculated that joint management committees would be established in both zones.

A recent article in North Korea’s economic journal Kyongje Yongu (October 30, 2012), outlined general types of SEZ management: management-led, public enterprise management, cooperative management, joint venture, and contract-based management committees. Government-led management committee was referred to as the most common form.

Currently, the Kaesong Industrial Complex is jointly operated by North and South Korea by a management committee. However, one drawback to this system is that the high government involvement places enormous constraints on the activities of investing companies.

China, on the other hand, is trying to reduce North Korea’s intervention in the management process of the SEZs. China is also shying away from adopting a management committee-led form of management.

Meanwhile, the seventh meeting of the DPRK-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee on Economics, Trade, and Science and Technology was held in Pyongyang on January 9, where an agreement on economic and technology cooperation was signed. At a subsequent ceremony, the two sides also signed an agreement for the construction of administrative office buildings in the Rason and Hwanggumpyong SEZs.

The DPRK-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee on Economics, Trade, and Science and Technology began in March 2005 and has held one to two meetings each year to promote bilateral economic cooperation.

Although KoryoLink’s corporate performance no longer appears in Orascom shareholder reports, Naguib Sawiris has given an interview in Forbes in which he offers some business details:

Sawiris has a 75% stake in Koryolink via his Orascom Telecom Media & Technology (OTMT) unit, with the remainder held by a company under the Ministry of Post & Telecommunications. He says revenues in 2012 should reach around €186 million ($145 million), with an average revenue per user of €8.6. The network only permits domestic calls and locally hosted data services. A separate cell network is available for foreigners in North Korea.

…

FORBES: How many subscribers does Koryolink have? How extensive is your coverage in DPRK?

NAGUIB SAWIRIS: Koryolink currently has more than 1.5 million subscribers. Coverage includes the capital Pyongyang in addition to 15 main cities, more than 100 small cities, and some highways and railways. Territory coverage is around 14%, and more than 90% population coverage. The subscriber base has been increasing at a very healthy rate from 950,000 at [year-end] 2011 to an estimated 1.7 million at [year-end] 2012.

FORBES: Under your joint venture with the Ministry of Telecommunications, when will Koryolink lose its exclusivity? What will happen after this period ends?

NS: Exclusivity was granted for a period of 4 years from launch. After the expiry of exclusivity in Dec. 2012, Koryolink received written confirmation that for an additional period of 3 years (until 2015) no foreign investors will be allowed in the mobile business. However, we are continuing to expand our network and services to further solidify our position [in order] to be ready for any possible competition.

FORBES: What is your role in the construction of the Ryugyong Hotel? What other real estate interests do you have in DPRK?

NS: This is a special investment that we are maintaining through our banking subsidiary in the DPRK, where Orascom has the right to operate this facility. The construction, repair and facade installations have all been completed last summer. We are planning to relocate Koryolink headquarters into the tower very soon to bring life to the building. There are no other real-estate investments in the DPRK, however, Orabank, our banking arm in DPRK, is actively working towards developing mobile-related businesses and projects.

Chris Green offers some great information (about which I have long wondered)  on the process required to acquire a cell phone:

First, the individual wishing to obtain a cell phone must go to his or her local Communications Technology Management Office (통신통화관리국 or CTMO; in provincial capitals only) or a subordinate arm of the same (in smaller cities) to obtain a three page application form. This form, once filled in, must be stamped by the Ministry of Public Security officer assigned to the individual’s workplace or, for those without official workplaces, attached to his or her local people’s unit.

Having paid off the public security official in cigarettes or cash (more often the former, according to this author’s sources, because it arouses less friction) he or she must submit the stamped form to the CTMO or equivalent, whereupon it is sent, with all the speed one would expect of the North Korean transportation network, to the Ministry of Communications in Pyongyang. At this point there is little else to be done but go away and pitch the proverbial tent, because at best it takes a month for the staff in the revolutionary capital to process the application.

Assuming, and it should not be assumed, that those checks done in Pyongyang don’t yield any incriminating evidence of wrongdoing (don’t forget, the North Korean legal system makes every adult a criminal in one way or another, something which can come back and haunt any individual whenever “rents” are desired), the individual will eventually be ordered back to his local communications office, whereupon he will be handed a payment form. He or she must then take this form to a bank, and engage with the separate, and no less inefficient, bureaucracy therein in order to pay the majority (though not all) of the cost of a phone and Koryolink network activation fee.[1]

The payment form, duly stamped by a functionary at the bank, must then be taken back to the CTMO or equivalent, whereupon it can be exchanged for half the stamped application form originally sought from the ministry in Pyongyang. Here, finally, the individual reaches a watershed moment: this form can actually be exchanged for a cellular telephone!

However, the pain is actually quite a long way short of being over. In a moment of uncharacteristic efficiency, the actual cell phone shop is often directly outside the communications office, but in a moment of karma-balancing inefficiency, it doesn’t open much, carries a limited amount of product and is pitifully understaffed. As a result, queues are long, as are waits. Assuming an individual lives long enough to reach the front of such a queue, he or she is finally offered the opportunity to hand over another $70-$100 and depart the scene with a brand new phone.

Writing in the Daily NK, Kim Kwang-jin explains how people are getting around this burdensome regulatory process:

Therefore, the source said, “Middlemen in larger cities are getting multiple phones activated in random people’s names and then taking them to smaller cities to sell. Alternatively, households that don’t have any problem getting that kind of approval are mobilizing the names of their entire families to get phones, which they are then selling on to the middlemen.”

“The end users are buying these cell phones for $300 to $500 from the middlemen or from private sellers. This saves them having to go to the trouble of applying to Koryolink,” he added.

A basic Koryolink phone can be purchased officially for roughly $270- $300, excluding bribes and extraneous costs. The price of one of these semi-legal phones depends on duration of use and model. The best product, the T1, a clamshell design, is the latest and costs more than $500. The next mid-range model is the T3, another clamshell; there is also a similarly priced phone with a slide design. The budget offerings are the T95 and T107. Differences in price are mostly attributable to differences in sound quality rather than the designs, sources assert.

In addition, there are also phones available for use within individual provinces. These products, which are similar to the so-called “city phones” that were briefly permitted in the late 90s but soon got withdrawn, cost just $70 at the time of writing.

Geoffrey See of Choson Exchange also offers some insight on Ora Bank’s mobile-related business projects:

However, it appears that Naguib, Chairman of Orascom, might have other ideas. In his words, “Orabank, our banking arm in DPRK, is actively working towards developing mobile-related businesses and projects.” The 3G network provides a platform for a range of other services that emerging market economies would need including remittances and payments through mobile banking and mobile payments. Given the primitive development of the services sector, mobile provides an opportunity for Orascom to upend the services industry in North Korea.

This was something I was originally looking at in North Korea. Payments are currently messy in the country. On a previous trip, I remembered an account of a North Korean trying to pay the handphone bill. Apparently the payment went to the wrong account, and the North Koreans spent the morning calling and shouting at some people to make the mistaken beneficiary return the money so that the payment could go to the right account. For what mobile banking and payments could potentially look like in North Korea, check out M-pesa.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang Calling For Egyptian Telecoms Tycoon Naguib Sawiris
Forbes
Simon Montlake
2012-11-18

Institute for Far Eastern Studies
2012-10-25

Recently, eight companies in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) informed that they received tax collection notices, a unilateral decision made by the North Koreans.

The Ministry of Unification and KIC reported that out of the 123 companies, 8 companies were informed by the North Korean authorities to pay about 160,000 USD in total in taxes.

Two companies out of the eight notified companies already paid close to 20,000 USD to the North Korean tax authorities.

On top of taxation, 21 companies were notified to submit additional tax documents. This may be to collect additional information for future tax collection purposes.

The tax authorities are also requiring companies to submit documents related to show proof of purchase of raw materials, and submit cost analysis documents and a copy of bank statements showing the history transactions.

Last August, the Central Special Direct General Bureau (CSDGB) notified the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee of new tax bylaws, which enforces a fine up to 200 times the amount of accounting manipulation and abolish the retroactive taxation system while increasing the number of documents for submission. Furthermore, the North is threatening to restrict access to the KIC, if companies fail to pay owed taxes or do not submit requested documents.

In addition to imposing fines for tax frauds, new tax bylaws demanded by the CSDGB included enforcement of additional taxes in the name of corporate income tax, sales tax, and other taxes.

The unilateral decision by the CSDGB to amend bylaws is a violation of Kaesong Industrial District Law, which requires any revision of the laws must be negotiated between the North and the South. Another problematic issue is that tax imposed on the companies is based on North Korea’s own estimation rather than tax reports submitted by the companies of the KIC.

For the first time last year, tenant companies in the KIC recorded an average operating profit of 56 million KRW, finally operating in the black after years in deficit.

UPDATE 2 (2012-10-18): Yonhap and the Korean Times pass along details of the tax increases in the Kaesong Zone:

North Korea has unilaterally imposed hefty taxes on South Korean firms operating in the joint Gaeseong inter-Korean industrial complex in the North while employees there are demanding the firms provide more severance pay, a Seoul government official said Thursday.

“The North imposed the taxes including corporate income and business taxes on some of the companies operating in the Gaeseong complex in accordance with a new tax enforcement regulation (enacted) and delivered by the North last August,” the official said.

The imposed taxes were unilaterally drawn based on the North’s estimation of business activities by the South Korean firms, according to the official. About 10-20 firms out of the total 123 South Korean firms operating in the complex located in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong were reportedly slapped with the heavy taxes.

The amount of taxes imposed and whether the firms paid them are not clearly known, but some of the companies are said to have paid the taxes amid increasing pressure from the North.

The North unilaterally issued the new tax regulations in August, which also allow the country to levy heavy fines if a South Korean firm is found to have accounting irregularities. The regulations allow fines as heavy as 200 times the amount involved in potential accounting fraud by South Korean firms.

As part of efforts to extract taxes, the North is reportedly threatening a ban on the movement of goods and people in and out of the complex if the taxes are not paid, other sources said.

South Korean firms there are protesting the levies, saying “they may thwart normal corporate activities,” but the North may not budge on the decision, they said.

In addition, North Korean employees at the Gaeseong complex are demanding that South Korean firms provide severance pay even if employees voluntarily quit.

Under the current labor terms in Kaesong, South Korean firms are required to offer severance pay only when North Korean employees are involuntarily laid off after at least one full year of employment.

As of end-August, a total of 52,881 North Korean workers were employed by South Korean firms operating in the Gaeseong complex. About 500 to 1,000 employees leave South Korean employers every year, citing health reasons or marriage.

Meanwhile, the South Korean firms continued to register an annual net loss from their operations in the Kaesong complex, the Unification Ministry handling inter-Korean issues said. The combined net loss of 119 firms out of the total 123 stood at 14 million won ($12,681) in 2011, decreasing from net losses of 134 million won and 272 million recorded in 2010 and 2009, respectively, according to the ministry.

Nearly 37 percent of the 119 firms surveyed by the ministry said they feel the North’s interference with their corporate activities is severe, the ministry said. Inability in hiring or firing North Korean workers is the most frequently cited complaint among the 119 firms polled, followed by difficulties in Internet connection and a shortage of North Korean labor.

Read previous posts on this topic below.

(more…)

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2012-10-4

North Korea-China Economic, Trade, Cultural, and Trade Expo is scheduled to be held from October 12 to 16, 2012 at Dandong City, Liaoning Province. The expo will be jointly hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Liaoning Provincial Committee, Liaoning People’s Friendship Association, and Dandong Municipal People’s Government.

China accounts for 90 percent of North Korea’s foreign trade. Approximately 70 percent of this trade comes through Dandong. Currently, Dandong is gaining both domestic and international attention as the construction of the New Yalu River Bridge is nearing completion and progress on the Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands Special Economic Zone is advancing.

North Korea-China Economic, Trade, Cultural, and Trade Expo will provide a place for not only product exhibits but will provide consultation for economic and trade cooperation, cultural exchanges and tourism. From the North Korean side, the largest trade investment company and government agency in charge of overseas labor export will be in attendance.

Over 500 booths and sections are ready for the expo and over 5,000 participants from foreign buyers are expected to attend. Over 100 companies and a 300-member economic-and-trade delegation will be coming from North Korea.

North Korea has recently held briefing sessions in Beijing for North Korean SEZs in Rajin and Hwangumpyong and Wihwa Islands from September 26 to 27. This two-day event was organized by the North Korean Committee for the Promotion of Economic Cooperation and China’s private GBD Public Diplomacy and Culture Exchange Center.

This event was an exclusive, invitation-only event, inviting major Chinese companies with investment interest in North Korea. There were over 100 officials from 30 different state-run corporations from North Korea present at the session to provide detailed information about 50 investment projects. The participants were required to pay an entrance fee and news media were prohibited from the event.

China’s Overseas Investment Federation (COIF) and North Korea Investment Office (NKIO) signed an agreementon September 22 to jointly launch the “Special Fund for Investment in North Korea.” NKIO is an overseas investment body subordinate to the Joint Venture and Investment Committee of North Korea (JVIC).

According to a Chinese media source, both states have set 3 billion RMB (476 million USD) as the goal for the fund; but in the initial stage, 1 billion RMB (159 million USD) will be utilized first to develop urgently needed urban infrastructure facilities focusing on mining, real estate, and port industries.

UPDATE 5 (2012-10-15): China is donating USD$1m to the UN World Food Program for use in the DPRK. Accoridng to ReliefWeb:

The Government of China has recently announced a contribution of US$1 million to WFP’s operation in DPR Korea. The donation will be used to assist children and their mothers who are most vulnerable to undernutrition.

In July 2012, WFP started a new operation in DPR Korea, focused on providing nutritional support to women and children most at risk of malnutrition. Much of the food distributed comes in the form of Super Cereal – specialised nutritious foods designed to address vital mineral and vitamin gaps in the regular north Korean diet.

The generous contribution from China will be used to buy around 1550 metric tons of maize, which will be the base ingredient for Super Cereal manufactured in DPR Korea and then distributed for one month to 400,000 children in hospitals, orphanages, and kindergartens. Pregnant and nursing mothers will also receive food rations.

WFP is in urgent need of an additional 30,000 metric tons of maize and 4,000 metric tons of cooking oil to ensure that the most vulnerable women and children in DPR Korea receive the nutritional assistance they need of the coming winter months.

China is an increasingly important donor to WFP, contributing over US$20 million to WFP operations in 2011.

UPDATE 4 (2012-10-5): According to KBS, the South Korean NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea delivered flour to Pyongyang:

The delivered the 260 million won worth of aid to Gaeseong to help North Korean residents suffering from the natural disasters through the Inter-Korean Transit Office. It plans to deliver an additional 500 tons of flour within this month.

Eleven representatives of the council, which represents 55 domestic humanitarian aid donors to the North, crossed the border to the North to send the flour.

UPDATE 3 (2012-9-24): Radio Free Asia reports (in Korean) that Agape International will be sending 21 tons of baby food to the DPRK.  See the original article here.  See the article in English via Google Translate here.

UPDATE 2 (2012-9-24): Russia just recently forgave the DPRK’s Soviet-era debt and opened a Russian-gauge railway line to Rason, where they lease a pier. Additionally, the Russians are interested in building a gas pipeline that extends to South Korea. They are also providing Food assistance via the UN World Food Program to the DPRK. According to Itar-Tass:

Russia has delivered more than 4,000 tonnes of flour to North Korea, the Emergencies Ministry’s Information Department told Itar-Tass on Monday.

According to the Emergencies Ministry’s representative, the aid to North Korea was rendered in the format of the memorandum of mutual understanding signed between the Russian government and the United Nations’ World Food Program.

“Over 4,100 tonnes of flour were delivered to North Korea by sea. A vessel with another batch of the same weight of flour is planned to be shipped out from the Nakhodka seaport to the North Korean seaport of Chongjin on September 27,” the Information Department said.

UPDATE 1 (2012-9-19): Indonesia will also be sending food assistance through the UN World Food Program. According to the Jakarta Post:

Indonesia will send food aid worth US$2 million in hopes of improving the famine crisis in North Korea, said Coordinating Peoples Welfare Minister Agung Laksono on Wednesday.

“[We] have coordinated with the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) to send aid to the World Food Program (WFP), which will later distribute it to citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” he said in Jakarta as quoted by tempo.co.

Agung also hoped that the humanitarian aid, which was initiated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, would strengthen diplomatic ties between the two countries.

North Korea is in a food crisis after its crops and food reserves were damaged by extreme weather.

After receiving news of the support, North Korean Ambassador to Indonesia Ri Jong Ryul cited a Korean proverb that says “a real friend’s quality is shown in the time of hardship.”

ORIGINAL POST (2012-9-20): The DPRK is to receive at least 1,000 tons of flour from two different donors.  These donors are were World Vision and JTS Korea, a Seoul-based Buddhist relief agency. Both gave 500 tons each via different channels. Interestingly, the World Vision assistance crossed the DMZ in trucks from South Korea.  The assistance from JTS was shipped from South Korea to Dandong where it will be exported to the DPRK.

Some coordination might be in order?

See more below.

According to the Associated Press (via Calgary Herald):

North Korea has accepted a shipment of emergency aid from relief agency World Vision to help victims of floods that killed dozens of people and submerged large amounts of farmland.

Twenty trucks carrying 500 tons of flour crossed the border into North Korea on Friday. World Vision says the aid will be sent to children in the North’s central South Phyongan (PYONG-ahn) province.

South Korean civic associations are also sending assistance. According to the Korea Times:

JTS Korea, a Seoul-based Buddhist relief agency, said a freighter carrying 500 tons of flour left the port of Incheon, west of Seoul, and will soon arrive in North Korea via the Chinese port city of Dandong on the border with the North.

The civilian aid for North Koreans was sent after the North was hit by severe floods in recent months, which left hundreds of people killed or missing.

“Our officials plan to visit North Korea in the near future to monitor the distribution of aid,” a JTS Korea official said.

The shipment came after North Korea last week rejected an offer by the South Korean government to donate 10,000 tons of flour, instant noodles and medicine as flood aid.

Officials at Seoul’s Unification Ministry in charge of North Korean affairs said Pyongyang turned down the proposal and openly displayed anger at Seoul’s refusal to give what the North said it needs most — rice and cement.

Read the full stories here:
North Korea accepts emergency aid from World Vision to help flood victims
Associated Press
2012-9-20

S. Korean civic group sends flood relief to NK
Korea Times
2012-9-20

The Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) is pleased to announce the release of e-Dossier No. 11, “Explaining North Korean Migration to China.”

The North Korea/China border region is often portrayed as a place of recent North Korean migration that started in the wake of famine of the early 1990s. This common knowledge is, however, only partially true and obscures as much as it illuminates: It ignores and is ignorant of the pre-existing fluidity of legal and illegal migration between the northern DPRK and the northern provinces of China. Importantly, the dominant narrative fails to understand that what was very new about the 1990s was not inter-country migration itself but the reversal of migration flow patterns. Prior to the 1990s, migration between the two countries was mainly a one-way traffic of ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality heading south towards North Korea.

NKIDP e-Dossier no. 11, “Explaining North Korean Migration to China,” is introduced by Hazel Smith, Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow and Professor in Humanitarianism and Security at Cranfield University, and features 11 translated Chinese documents which provide evidence of historical cases of legal and illegal migration between the DPRK and China.

For more information, click here.

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2012-9-27

North Korea is promoting new inventions and technologies with potential to influence the economy and improve the daily lives of the people.

As an extension of that effort, North Korea hosted the 12th National Exhibition of Invention and New Technologies. The KCNA reported on September 19, this exhibition was a meaningful event for promoting intellectual products.

Kim Young-gun, the Commissioner of the National Science and Technology Council said, “One important purpose of the exhibition was to encourage and provide a place for agreements, contracts, and sales between consumers and exhibitors of intellectual products on display.”

He explained, “As a preparatory step, two weeks prior to the exhibition day, we gathered and distributed product and technology proposal information nationwide. We also try to meet the domestic demands and promote distribution of products throughout the country.”

He boasted that the exhibition was a success with over 1,000 orders taken for intellectual products. He also commented that wide varieties of new inventions, with new technologies, were on display and contracts were signed for technology and product development and new inventions.

North Korea established intellectual product regulations with the intention to create an environment favorable for intellectual product distribution and to follow the current trend in science and technology of the international community. North Korea also has a patent and technical literature archives in operation.

North Korea emphasized that this exhibition well displayed the strength and wisdom of the North Korean people in the country’s attempt to rise as a science and technology powerhouse.

North Korea has filed two cases of international patents through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) this year. WIPO has confirmed that one of the patents filed this April was a cast iron welding rod structure used for industrial material while the other patent was still in the filing process and thus could not be disclosed to the public.

North Korea submitted three patent filings in 2007, seven in 2008, and four in 2011.

North Korea became a member of WIPO in 1974 and joined the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 1980.