The new system has been implemented from the beginning of this year, a source in South Hamgyong province told RFA’s Korean Service.
Under the reforms, as part of agricultural liberalization in North Korea’s rigidly planned economy, farm workers may keep up to 30 percent of their unit’s produce and are allowed to sell them at market prices, sources said.
Authorities have divided up the traditional collective farms and allocated fields to smaller group units.
“The North Korean government has been dividing collective farmland up into small units since [the beginning of] 2013,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some workers are hopeful that the changes could help ease the impoverished country’s food shortages, but others are unsure how much they will benefit, a source from South Pyongan province said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Some people are excited, expecting there will be enough rice in North Korea,” he said, adding that there was “optimism” that the system will help boost food production.
“But some are skeptical, with a strong distrust in the government which has been conducting everything unsuccessfully,” the source added.
Management structure unchanged
The move to liberalize the agriculture sector is believed to be a policy initiative of North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong Un, who took over after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011 after initiating some economic reforms that failed to take off.
No major public announcement of the new policy has been made so far.
Sources said that a key stumbling block to the farm reforms is the management structures of the collective farms which remain unchanged since the policy was implemented.
The lack of change in the leadership system leaves farm workers “uncertain” how much of that 30 percent will go into their own pockets, they said.
For example, it remains unclear whether farm managers will receive their share of harvests from the 70 percent allocated to the state or the up to 30 percent portion that goes to workers, they said.
One source in China, which is North Korea’s main diplomatic and trading partner, said the system would make little difference to workers without a guarantee on the division of profits.
“It seems like the North Korean government wants to boost the motivation to work, but there is not much difference between the previous system and the new system unless they guarantee the autonomy of workers,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On March 31, KCNA reported on the recent plenary meeting of the Korean Worker’s Party:
The historic March, 2013 plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea took place at the building of the WPK Central Committee, supreme staff of the Korean revolution, on Sunday.
First Secretary of the WPK Kim Jong Un guided the meeting.
Present at the meeting were members and alternate members of the WPK Central Committee and members of the Central Auditing Commission of the WPK.
Present there as observers were senior officials of ministries, national institutions, provincial, city and county committees of the WPK, complexes, major munitions factories and enterprises.
The participants paid silent tribute to President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il.
Taken up for discussion at the meeting were the following agenda items “1. On tasks of our Party on bringing about a decisive turn in accomplishing revolutionary cause of Juche as required by the present situation and the developing revolution”, “2. On personnel affairs issue to be submitted to the 7th Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly” and “3. On organizational matter”.
Kim Jong Un made a report and concluding speech on the first agenda item.
The plenary meeting set forth a new strategic line on carrying out economic construction and building nuclear armed forces simultaneously under the prevailing situation and to meet the legitimate requirement of the developing revolution.
This line is a brilliant succession and development onto a new higher stage of the original line of simultaneously developing economy and national defence that was set forth and had been fully embodied by the great Generalissimos.
It was stressed at the meeting that the party’s new line is not a temporary countermeasure for coping with the rapidly changing situation but a strategic line to be always held fast to, in the supreme interests of the Korean revolution.
The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are neither a political bargaining chip nor a thing for economic dealings to be presented to the place of dialogue or be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the DPRK to disarm itself.
The DPRK’s nuclear armed forces represent the nation’s life which can never be abandoned as long as the imperialists and nuclear threats exist on earth. They are a treasure of a reunified country which can never be traded with billions of dollars.
Only when the nuclear shield for self-defence is held fast, will it be possible to shatter the U.S. imperialists’ ambition for annexing the Korean Peninsula by force and making the Korean people modern slaves, firmly defend our ideology, social system and all other socialist treasures won at the cost of blood and safeguard the nation’s right to existence and its time-honored history and brilliant culture.
When the party’s new line is thoroughly carried out, the DPRK will emerge as a great political, military and socialist economic power and a highly-civilized country which steers the era of independence.
The meeting set forth tasks for carrying out the new line and ways for doing so.
All the officials, party members and other people should wage bold offensive and all-people decisive battle with faith in sure victory and strong determination and thus make the flame of miracle and innovation sweep all fields of national economy.
The pilot fields of the national economy, the basic industrial fields should be drastically developed and production be increased to the maximum. Forces should be directed to agriculture and light industry, key fields in building an economic power to improve and put on a stable basis the people’s living standard at the earliest possible date.
The self-reliant nuclear power industry should be developed and the work for developing light water reactor be dynamically promoted to actively contribute to easing the strain on the electricity problem of the country.
Spurs should be given to the development of space science and technology and more advanced satellites including communications satellites be developed and launched.
The country’s economy should be shifted into knowledge-based economy and the foreign trade be made multilateral and diversified and investment be widely introduced.
The economic guidance shall be fundamentally improved as required by the new situation and Korean-style advantageous economic management methods be completed by embodying the Juche idea.
The DPRK’s possession of nukes should be fixed by law and the nuclear armed forces should be expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively until the denuclearization of the world is realized.
The People’s Army should perfect the war method and operation in the direction of raising the pivotal role of the nuclear armed forces in all aspects concerning the war deterrence and the war strategy, and the nuclear armed forces should always round off the combat posture.
As a responsible nuclear weapons state, the DPRK will make positive efforts to prevent the nuclear proliferation, ensure peace and security in Asia and the rest of the world and realize the denuclearization of the world.
Institutions in charge of security and safeguard, judicial and prosecution and people’s security and the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces should resolutely foil the vicious moves of the imperialist reactionaries and class enemies, devotedly defend the party, social system and people and surely guarantee the new line of the party with arms and by law.
The party and working people’s organizations and power bodies should increase their militant function and role in every way in the struggle for implementing the party’s line.
The meeting entrusted the Presidium of the SPA and the Cabinet with the matters of taking legal, administrative and technical measures for implementing the tasks.
At the meeting a decision on the first agenda item “On carrying out economic construction and building nuclear armed forces simultaneously and thus bringing earlier the final victory in the cause of building a thriving socialist nation” was adopted with unanimous approval.
The second agenda item, personal affairs issue to be submitted to the 7th Session of the 12th SPA, was discussed and decided at the meeting.
The meeting also dealt with an organizational matter, its third agenda item.
Members of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee, members and alternate members of the Political Bureau were recalled and new ones were elected to fill vacancies.
Pak Pong Ju was elected to fill a vacancy of a member of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee.
Hyon Yong Chol, Kim Kyok Sik and Choe Pu Il were elected to fill vacancies of alternate members of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee.
Members and alternate members of the WPK Central Committee were recalled and new ones were elected to fill vacancies.
Upon authorization of Kim Jong Un, Paek Kye Ryong was appointed as director of the Light Industrial Department of the WPK Central Committee and Yun U Chol as editor-in-chief of Rodong Sinmun, organ of the WPK Central Committee.
Members of the Central Auditing Commission of the WPK were also recalled and new ones were elected to fill vacancies.
Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea Stresses Development of Agricultural, Light, and Nuclear Industries
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2013-4-4
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on March 31 that a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea was held. At the meeting, a new strategic line was announced to have been set, which called for building a stronger economy and nuclear arsenal. This meeting is drawing attention as it is suspected that Pyongyang will pursue a new economic policy.
The news described the new strategic line as, “most revolutionary and people oriented policy for the construction of a powerful socialist nation by consolidating defense capacity through development of defensive nuclear weapons and economic construction.”
It stressed that this policy is significant as a “creative and parallel policy for defense and economy continuing the policies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, which must be adopted as a permanent strategy.”
At the plenary meeting, the main agendas for the parallel policy of economy and defense were announced as: 1) Improvement of the production of people’s economy and capacity enhancement for agricultural and light industries to stabilize prices to improve the lives of the people; 2) development of self-reliant nuclear power industry and light water reactors; 3) development and launch of more satellites including communication satellites through advancement in space science and technology; 4) transition to knowledge economy and diversification of foreign trade to vitalize foreign investments; and 5) establish legislation to be recognized as a nuclear state and develop nuclear arsenal both in quantity and quality until denuclearization is realized worldwide.
At the plenary, the new parallel policy was commended, “The supremacy of the policy is demonstrated by expanding capability in war deterrence and national defense without increasing defense budget and enabled concentration on economic development and improvement of the lives of the people.”
The statement released by the KCNA stated that the plenary meeting’s emphasis on transition to knowledge economy and diversification of foreign trade as the main tasks and appears to be pursuing a “fundamental improvement in economic leadership.”
In addition, the plenary assigned the presidium of the Supreme Peoples’ Assembly and the Cabinet to serve as the economic control tower to oversee the future projects decided at the plenary meeting.
North Korea is continuing to place emphasis on light and agricultural industries. The Kim Jong Un regime entered its second year. The leader was reported to have attended the light industry conference, which was held for the first time in ten years and underscored the importance of concentrating on development of the capacity of light industry.
The new Korean line, 병진 (Pyongjin, Byungjin) is the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy. Learn more about it here.
Following the central committee plenary meeting, the 7th Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly was held. According to KCNA:
The Seventh Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of the DPRK took place at the Mansudae Assembly Hall Monday.
Kim Jong Un, first secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, first chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army, was present at the session.
Present there were deputies to the SPA.
Also present there as observers were officials of party, armed forces and power bodies, public organizations, ministries and national institutions and those in the fields of science, education, literature and art, public health and media.
All the participants observed a moment’s silence in memory of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il in humblest reverence.
The session decided the following agenda items of the Seventh Session of the 12th SPA of the DPRK:
1. On amending and supplementing some contents of the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK
2. On adopting the DPRK Law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun
3. On adopting the ordinance of the SPA of the DPRK “On Consolidating the Position of Nuclear Weapons State for Self-Defence”
4. On adopting the DPRK Law on Developing Space
5. On adopting the decision of the SPA of the DPRK “On Setting up the DPRK State Space Development Bureau”
6. On the work of the DPRK Cabinet for Juche 101 (2012) and its tasks for Juche 102 (2013)
7. On the review of the fulfillment of the DPRK’s state budget for Juche 101 (2012) and state budget for Juche 102 (2013)
8. Organizational matter
The session discussed the first and second agenda items.
Deputy Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK SPA, made a report on amendment and supplement to some contents of the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK and on adopting the law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
Then followed speeches on the first and second agenda items.
Deputy Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the WPK Central Committee, spoke on behalf of the WPK, Deputy Choe Ryong Hae, director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA, on behalf of the KPA and Deputy Jon Yong Nam, chairman of the C.C., the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, on behalf of the youth.
The speakers fully supported and approved of deliberation and adoption of the draft amendment and supplement to the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK and the law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun at the current SPA session reflecting the unanimous feelings of all party members, service personnel and youth across the country.
The ordinances of the SPA of the DPRK “On Amending and Supplementing Some Contents of the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK” and “On Adopting the DPRK Law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun” were adopted at the session with the approval of all deputies.
The session discussed the third, fourth and fifth agenda items.
The ordinances of the SPA of the DPRK “On Consolidating the Position of Nuclear Weapons State for Self-Defence” and “On Adopting the DPRK Law on Developing Space” and the decision of the SPA of the DPRK “On Setting Up the DPRK State Space Development Bureau” were adopted at the session with the approval of all deputies.
Deputy Choe Yong Rim, premier of the Cabinet, made a report on the sixth agenda item.
Deputy Choe Kwang Jin, minister of Finance, made a report on the seventh agenda item.
Then followed speeches on the sixth and seventh agenda items. Written speeches were presented at the session.
The speakers noted that the Cabinet work and the fulfillment of the state budget for last year were correctly reviewed and summed up, clear tasks of the Cabinet were set forth to meet the requirements of the general offensive to open an epochal phase in building an economic power at the final stage of the all-out action against the U.S. and the state budget was correctly shaped. They expressed full support and approval of them.
They expressed their determination to reenergize the overall economy of the country, step up the grand advance for improving the standard of people’s living to make loud shouts of hurrah for the Workers’ Party and socialism heard this year marking the 65th anniversary of the DPRK and the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War, true to the historic New Year Address of Kim Jong Un and the decision of the March, 2013 plenary meeting of the WPK Central Committee.
The decision of the SPA of the DPRK “On Approval of the Report on the Work of the DPRK Cabinet and the Review of the Fulfillment of the State Budget for Juche 101 (2012)” and the ordinance of the SPA of the DPRK “On the DPRK’s State Budget for Juche 102 (2013)” were adopted at the session with the approval of all deputies.
The session discussed the organizational matter.
At the session Deputy Choe Yong Rim was recalled from the post of premier of the DPRK Cabinet and Deputy Pak Pong Ju was elected premier of the DPRK Cabinet at the proposal of the WPK Central Committee.
Choe Yong Rim was elected honorary vice-president of the Presidium of the DPRK SPA.
Deputies Kim Jong Gak and Ri Myong Su were recalled from the posts of member of the DPRK National Defence Commission (NDC) due to the transfer to other jobs.
Deputies Kim Kyok Sik and Choe Pu Il were elected members of the DPRK NDC to fill vacancies at the proposal of the WPK Central Committee and the WPK Central Military Commission.
Deputy Thae Hyong Chol was recalled from the post of secretary general of the Presidium of the DPRK SPA and Deputy Hong Son Ok was elected secretary general of the Presidium of the DPRK SPA.
Some members of the Cabinet were relieved of their posts and appointed at the session.
Deputy Pak Pong Ju, premier of the DPRK Cabinet, took an oath at the SPA.
KCNA also issued several reports that stemmed from the SPA meeting:
Report on Adopting Draft Amendment and Supplement to Socialist Constitution and Law on Kumsusan Palace of Sun
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, made a report on adopting the draft amendment and supplement to the Socialist Constitution of the DPRK and the law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
According to the report, the draft amendment and supplement to the Socialist Constitution and the law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to be submitted to the session for discussion will legalize the plan and intention of the Workers’ Party of Korea to fix by law the shining achievements made in accomplishing the cause of perpetuating the memory of the leaders and complete it on a new higher stage.
To be supplemented to the preface of the Socialist Constitution is the sentence which says that the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il lie in state is a grand edifice for the immortality of the leaders, a symbol of the dignity of the whole Korean nation and its eternal sacred temple.
The law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun specifies that its noble mission is to preserve and glorify forever the palace, which is the supreme temple of Juche, as the eternal temple of the sun of the entire Korean nation.
The law stipulates that Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il will be held in high esteem forever as in their lifetime at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and that it is the obligation of all the Koreans to regard the Palace as a symbol of dignity and a great pride of the nation.
It also specifies the state duty to spruce up the Palace in a sublime and perfect way with the state, all-people and nationwide efforts and devotedly safeguard the Palace in every way so that no one can violate.
Also stipulated in the law are matters for carrying out the work of eternally preserving the Palace as the most important state work with consistency, organizing the committee for the eternal preservation of the Palace and preserving for photos, train coaches, cars, boat and other relics and orders which represent the noble lives of the great Generalissimos.
Orders were also set so that Korean people, overseas Koreans and foreigners can pay respects to the great Generalissimos at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
Also mentioned in the law are the matters of establishment of special sanctuary of the Palace for its protection and management as well as the management of buildings in the premise of the palace, park, arboretum, outdoor lighting and lighting facilities and orders concerning the operation of the plaza and the park of the Palace.
It was specified in the law that electricity, facilities, materials and other supplies needed for the Palace shall be planned separately and be provided without fail on a top priority basis. The law also set the duty to be fulfilled by relevant institutions to strictly supervise and control on a regular basis the work for safeguarding, eternally preserving and providing the conditions for the management and operation of the Palace.
The reporter said that the law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun is the unique code for the immortality of the leaders, adding that it is the biggest honor for the army and people of the DPRK to have the legal weapon for the immortality of the leaders.
The adoption of the law will serve as a historic occasion for defending and further glorifying the idea on perpetuating the memory of the leaders clarified by the dear respected Kim Jong Un, he stressed.
The reporter said that the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK submits the draft amendment and supplement to the Socialist Constitution and the draft law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to the SPA session for discussion according to Article 95 of the Socialist Constitution.
And…
DPRK’s Law on Kumsusan Palace of Sun Adopted
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — The DPRK’s Law on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun was adopted.
The ordinance of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly on it was promulgated Monday.
The Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il lie in state is the
eternal temple of the sun of the whole Korean nation.
The ordinance says that the SPA decides to adopt this law to eternally preserve and glorify forever the
Kumsusan Palace of the Sun as a grand edifice for the immortality of the leaders symbolic of Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea.
And…
Law on Consolidating Position of Nuclear Weapons State Adopted
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — A law on consolidating the position of nuclear weapons state for self-defence was adopted in the DPRK.
An ordinance of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK in this regard was promulgated on Monday.
The ordinance said as follows:
The DPRK is a full-fledged nuclear weapons state capable of beating back any aggressor troops at one strike, firmly defending the socialist system and providing a sure guarantee for the happy life of the people.
Having an independent and just nuclear force, the DPRK put an end to the distress-torn history in which it was subject to outside forces’ aggression and interference and could emerge a socialist power of Juche which no one dares provoke.
The Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK decides to consolidate the position of the nuclear weapons state as follows:
1. The nuclear weapons of the DPRK are just means for defence as it was compelled to have access to them to cope with the ever-escalating hostile policy of the U.S. and nuclear threat.
2. They serve the purpose of deterring and repelling the aggression and attack of the enemy against the DPRK and dealing deadly retaliatory blows at the strongholds of aggression until the world is denuclearized.
3. The DPRK shall take practical steps to bolster up the nuclear deterrence and nuclear retaliatory strike power both in quality and quantity to cope with the gravity of the escalating danger of the hostile forces’ aggression and attack.
4. The nuclear weapons of the DPRK can be used only by a final order of the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army to repel invasion or attack from a hostile nuclear weapons state and make retaliatory strikes.
5. The DPRK shall neither use nukes against the non-nuclear states nor threaten them with those weapons unless they join a hostile nuclear weapons state in its invasion and attack on the DPRK.
6. The DPRK shall strictly observe the rules on safekeeping and management of nukes and ensuring the stability of nuclear tests.
7. The DPRK shall establish a mechanism and order for their safekeeping and management so that nukes and their technology, weapon-grade nuclear substance may not leak out illegally.
8. The DPRK shall cooperate in the international efforts for nuclear non-proliferation and safe management of nuclear substance on the principle of mutual respect and equality, depending on the improvement of relations with hostile nuclear weapons states.
9. The DPRK shall strive hard to defuse the danger of a nuclear war and finally build a world without nukes and fully support the international efforts for nuclear disarmament against nuclear arms race.
10. The related institutions shall take thorough practical steps for implementing this ordinance.
And…
DPRK Law on Developing Space Adopted
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — The Law on Developing Space was adopted in the DPRK.
The ordinance of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly on it was promulgated Monday.
And…
DPRK SPA Decides to Set Up State Space Development Bureau
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — The DPRK decided to set up the State Space Development Bureau.
The decision of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of the DPRK promulgated on Monday said:
The DPRK is a full-fledged satellite manufacturer and launcher.
It is an invariable stand of the DPRK to develop the country into a world-class space power by exercising its legitimate right to space development for peaceful purposes.
To step up economic construction and improve the people’s standard of living by radically developing the space science and technology of the country and guide and manage all the space activities of the DPRK in a uniform way, the SPA decides as follows:
1. The DPRK State Space Development Bureau shall be set up.
2. The bureau is a state central institution which guides and manages the supervision and control over the working out of a space development program and its implementation and space development work in a uniform way.
3. The Cabinet of the DPRK and other institutions concerned shall take practical measures to implement this decision.
And…
Work of Cabinet for Last Year and Tasks for This Year
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — At the 7th Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly held on Monday, Deputy and Premier Choe Yong Rim made a report on the last year’s work of the DPRK Cabinet and this year’s tasks.
According to the report, last year electricity and coal production and the volume of railway freight transport increased amid the endeavors to shore up the four pilot fields of the national economy. Increase was also made in the production of a variety of industrial goods, the report said, and went on:
The Kumsusan Palace of the Sun was remodeled to be the supreme temple of Juche, the National Gifts Exhibition House, Pyongyang Folklore Park, Changjon Street, Rungna People’s Pleasure Park and other big edifices in the era of Songun have been built.
Big industrial projects such as the Huichon Power Station, Tanchon Port, Taedonggang Building Materials Factory were completed and technological updating and modernization of major factories and enterprises in the field of metal, machine, chemical and light industries have been pushed forward, consolidating the material and technological foundation of the national economy.
Satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 was successfully manufactured and launched and the third underground nuclear test by the use of smaller and lighter A-bomb of great explosive power was successfully conducted.
The bases for the production of cutting-edge technical goods were built and projects for the development of science and technology have been successfully carried out and the modernization of the information and communications field have been stepped up.
A law on the enforcement of the universal 12-year compulsory education was promulgated. This paved a wide avenue for consolidating the socialist education system and raising the quality of education.
In the field of health care, a telemedicine service has been successfully introduced. The DPRK’s players glorified the honor of the country at major international sports events including the 30th Olympic Games and other signal achievements were made in the field of cultural construction.
The reporter said that this year’s tasks are to realize at an early date the lifetime desire of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il, who devoted their whole lives to putting the country’s economy on the level of a prosperous and powerful country and to making the people live with no more to desire in the world.
According to the report, this year the Cabinet will organize the economic work with a main emphasis on solving issues arising in the people’s living by shoring up the pilot fields, the basic industrial field, consolidating the springboard for building an economic power and concentrating all efforts on agriculture and light industry while regarding coal industry and metal industry as key fields.
It is necessary to increase the production of coal.
Technological updating and modernization of iron works and steel works will be stepped up while improving the bases for the production of Juche iron which have already been built in the field of metal industry. Strict measures for supplying raw materials and fuel should be taken to increase the production of rolled steel more than 3.5 times as compared with last year and thus meet the need for steel.
The field of railway transport will ease strain on transport by consolidating the material and technical foundation of railways.
The grain production plan for this year should be carried out without condition.
The whole country should make efforts for the reclamation of Sepho Tideland and the construction of stock-breeding bases and thus complete the creation of grassland within this year.
The production should be put at a high rate at major chemical factories and the percentage of locally available raw materials should be significantly increased. The production at mines, factories and enterprises in Tanchon area should be increased and exports be boosted to ensure in a responsible manner funds for improving the people’s living standard.
Big efforts should be directed to the construction of dwelling houses. Wonsan area should turn into a world-level resort and tourist destination and living environment and conditions be improved in provinces, cities and counties.
The state investment in the field of science and technology should be increased and the flame of industrial revolution in the new century be raised so as to bring about a decisive turn in building an economic power by dint of science and technology.
Ultra-modern technological goods of high competitiveness should be massively researched and developed. Scientific and technological issues arising in the technological updating and modernization of the national economy should be satisfactorily solved.
The state investment will be increased in education and the preparations for enforcing the universal 12-year compulsory education system be rounded off within this year and fresh progress be made in education, public health, literature, arts, sports and all other fields of cultural construction.
All the fields and units of the national economy should build under a long-term plan export bases for producing second-stage and third-stage processed goods and finished goods of high competitiveness at international markets by relying on locally available resources and indigenous technology. Latest scientific and technological achievements should be positively introduced to increase the varieties of exports and remarkably raise their quality.
Trade should be made diversified and multilateral while conducting a variety of trade activities. The joint venture and collaboration should be actively promoted and the work for setting up economic development zones be pushed forward.
And…
Review of Fulfillment of State Budget for Last Year and State Budget for This Year
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) — Deputy Choe Kwang Jin, minister of Finance, made a report on the review of the fulfillment of state budget for last year and the state budget for this year at the 7th Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly held on Monday.
According to the report, the state budgetary revenue last year was over-fulfilled by 1.3 percent, an increase of 10.1 percent over the previous year.
The plan for local budgetary revenue was carried out at 113.8 percent.
The state budgetary expenditure was implemented at 99.6 percent, an increase of 9.7 percent over that in the previous year.
44.8 percent of the total state budgetary expenditure for the economic development and improvement of people’s living standard was used for funding the building of edifices to be presented to the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung, the consolidation of the material and technological foundation of Juche-based, modern and self-supporting economy and the work for face-lifting the country.
38.9 percent of total expenditure was spent for enforcing popular policies and measures for social culture under socialism such as the universal free compulsory education system, free healthcare, social insurance and social security, recuperation and relaxation systems as well as those for development of literature and art and building of a sports power.
Some of the total state budgetary expenditure went to national defence.
According to the report, this year’s state budgetary revenue and expenditure have been shaped in such a way as keeping the overall economy afloat and bringing about a decisive turn in stabilizing and improving the standard of people’s living.
The state budgetary revenue is expected to increase 4.1 percent over that last year.
Out of this, the transaction tax, main source of budgetary revenue, is expected to grow 3.5 percent, the revenue from the profits of state enterprises 6 percent, revenue from the profits of cooperative enterprises 5.3 percent, the revenue from the depreciation 2.8 percent and revenue from real estate rent 3.4 percent.
In the total state budgetary revenue, national budgetary revenue will account for 83 percent and local budgetary revenue 17 percent.
Provinces, cities and counties are envisaged to ensure expenditure with local import and put a huge amount of fund into national budget.
The state budgetary expenditure is expected to grow 5.9 percent over last year.
It was decided to increase expenditure in the field of coal, electricity, metal and railway transport 7.2 percent, the field of agriculture and light industry 5.1 percent, basic investment in capital construction and big overhaul 5.8 percent, the field of science and technology 6.7 percent, the field of education 6.8 percent, the field of public health 5.4 percent, the field of social insurance and security 3.7 percent, the field of sports 6.1 percent and the field of culture 2.2 percent.
Some of the total state budgetary expenditure will go for national defence.
A large amount of educational aid fund and stipends will be sent for the education of Korean children in Japan to promote the development of the democratic national education of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
The reporter called for working hard to glorify this significant year marking the 65th anniversary of the DPRK and the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War as a year of gigantic creation and innovations, in hearty response to the historic New Year Address by Kim Jong Un and the decision made at the March, 2013 plenary meeting of the WPK Central Committee.
Here is what Yonhap had to say about the DPRK’s defense budget:
North Korea is expected to spend 16 percent of its budget on national defense in 2013, up 0.2 percentage point from the year before, the country’s state media said Tuesday.
According to the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, Finance Minister Choe Kwang-jin reported to a meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang on Monday that the money is needed to effectively cope with “indiscriminate” provocations by the United States and its followers.
The paper, however, did not disclose the exact size of the defense budget, although South Korea’s unification ministry speculated that last year’s military budget totaled US$910 million.
The proportion of the spending plan compared to the overall budget, is the highest tallied since 1998, according to South Korean analysts.
From 1998 through 2002, the North is estimated to have spent 14.4 percent to 14.5 percent of its annual budget on defense, with numbers going up and being fixed at 15.8 percent in the 2007-2012 period, they said.
Additional information:
1. Here and here is KCTV footage of the SPA meeting.
Pictured above (Google Earth): The Chongryon headquarters building in Tokyo ( 35.697001°, 139.743435°).
UPDATE 2 (2013-3-27): A Buddhist order on good terms with the Chongryun won the property auction and will allow the Chongryun to remain on the premises. According to the Japan Times:
The Kagoshima temple offered ¥4.5 billion, the highest among four bidders, to acquire the land and the Chongryon building.
“We will keep the building as it is and make it a base of harmony among ethnic groups in Asia, including North Korea,” said Saifuku Temple leader Ekan Ikeguchi.
“The function of our headquarters will be maintained for the time being, at least,” a Chongryon official said. “We feel relieved.”
The government-backed Resolution and Collection Corp. put the premises out to tender to recoup loans of about ¥62.7 billion it made to Chongryon.
UPDATE 1 (2013-3-13): The Wall Street Journal’s Japan Real Time reports that the auction has finally begun on the Chongryun’s headquarters building in central Tokyo. According to the article:
Bidding has begun for the repossessed central headquarters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, North Korea’s de-facto embassy in the country. It’s an attempt by the Japanese government to get back some of the ¥62.7 billion owed by the pro-Pyongyang group, also known as Chongryon, and comes as the reclusive regime faces a new round of sanctions and international condemnation following its third nuclear test.
Built in 1986, the 10-story office building has two basement floors and is situated on a 2,390 square-meter piece of land in a prime location in central Tokyo. The Tokyo District Court said in its assessment of the building that some portions of it showed signs of age-related deterioration as well as damage incurred during the massive 2011 earthquake that shook northeastern Japan.
Analysts say that as the auctioneer’s hammer falls, so falls the fortunes of the once-influential group.
“Losing its central headquarters is symbolic of Chongryon’s decline,” said Hajime Izumi, Professor of International Relations at Shizuoka University. “While the organization will survive, I expect it to face increasing difficulty maintaining itself,” he said.
Founded in 1955 as an organization representing the pro-North Korean members of Japan’s ethnic Korean minority, Chongryon has been responsible for pumping out North Korean propaganda and has been operating banks, a newspaper and numerous schools for Korean residents in Japan.
The group has also been a reliable source of hard cash for Pyongyang, with members sending back a large portion of revenue accumulated through numerous “pachinko” gambling parlors and real-estate businesses operated across the nation.
But Yoshifu Arita, an upper house lawmaker in Japan’s parliament, said the organization faced severe head-winds in 2002 when the late Kim Jong Il admitted during a meeting with then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.
“This led to a massive public backlash toward North Korea as well the organization,” he said. “It led to many disillusioned members leaving Chongryon as pressure on them mounted.”
Chongryong’s debt stems from a network of credit unions for pro-North Korean residents of Japan that collapsed and had to be bailed out by the government-backed Resolution and Collection Corporation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The debt has been transferred to Chongryon, which has been sued by the RCC for repayment.
A 72-year-old South Korean businessman living in Kobe, who used to be affiliated with Chongryon, added that the younger generation of Koreans in Japan also felt less of a link and patriotism toward Pyongyang. And with Japan’s long economic malaise following the burst of its debt bubble in the early 1990s, “pro-Pyongyang supporters don’t have the cash or the will to lend a hand to the organization, even when its headquarters are about to be sold off,” added the businessman, who asked not to be identified.
Bids for the building, which began Tuesday, will be accepted through March 19. The winner of the auction, which Chongryon cannot participate in, is expected to be decided on March 29.
ORIGINAL POST (2012-7-26): The Atlantic has a great piece on recent developments with the General Association of Koreans in Japan (Chongryong or Chosen Soren):
As with just about anything regarding North Korea, even the surface-level truth belies deeper and darker realities. If it weren’t for the chronic economic crisis and resulting famine that gripped North Korea in the 1990s, as well as a rising anti-North Korean strain in Japanese politics, then the criminal enterprises, communal bonds, and official connections that made Chongryon such a formidable political and cultural organization may well have remained intact. It took economic collapse, regional crisis, and domestic political upheaval to bring Chongryon to its knees.
North Korea has no official embassy in Japan, so the Pyongyang-linked Chongryon acts as an unofficial representative of a government that has kidnapped Japanese citizens and fired long-range missiles in the island nation’s direction. It runs banks, a newspaper, dozens of schools, and a university named after Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s “eternal leader” and the current despot’s grandfather. In the 1980s, Chongryon’s business and criminal enterprises, which included off-book pachinko parlors, pubs, prostitution rings, and real estate, reportedly produced over a billion dollars a year in revenue — much of which, according to Michael J. Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was sent back to Pyongyang. As late as 1990, its banking system was capitalized to the tune of $25 billion.
Because North Korea has few exports and is under severe international sanctions, unofficial currency-gathering enterprises like this one can be crucial. And the group also serves as a propaganda outlet, pushing out the DPRK party line to ethnic Koreans. It would be unimaginable for North Korea to own a K-Street high-rise, and South Korea officially bans any expression of support for its northern neighbor. But Japan has allowed its enemy’s outpost to remain, and even thrive.
A much-appreciated colleague has sent me a PDF document published by the DPRK’s Committee for the Promotion of External Economic Cooperation in 2003. It that contains hundreds of pages of DPRK laws and regulations.
The DPRK’s Naenara web page posts PDF copies of the DPRK magazine, International Trade. No updates have been made for 2013, however, Choson Exchange points an interesting article from the Q4 2012 issue which contains interesting information on the DPRK mining sector.
The article, “Abundant Underground Resources and the Policy for Their Development,” provides information on the “DPRK Law on Underground Resources” which was allegedly adopted by Decree No. 14 at the fifth session of the ninth Supreme Peoples’ Assembly (1993-4-8: during the Arduous March).
The text of the law is not given, and most of the article is “fluff” language, but here are some interesting tidbits:
Institutions, enterprises and organizations can develop underground resources. They are obliged not only to make mining equipment large, modern, and high-speed, and diversify transportation but to give priority to tunneling and introduce efficient mining methods to boost mineral output.
Development of underground resources is subject to the approval of the state organ of deliberation of underground resources development .
Institutions, enterprises and organizations engaged in underground resource development shall ensure high efficiency of investment pursuant to the design of underground resource development.
They shall ensure rational organization of mining to excavate ore bodies that conform to mining criterion and standard of calculating deposits of underground resources. But the practices of digging out only high-grade and thick ore bodies in good condition to excavate are prohibited.
Abandoning of ore and coal mines and their pits should be subject to the approval of the state organ of deliberation of underground resource development.
Institutions, enterprises, and organizations, concerned should actively tap the resources of geotherm, underground water and mineral water for the economic development and improvement of people’s [sic] life [sic].
The living environment of inhabitants and ecological environment of animals and plants, including land, resources and landscapes should not be damaged in the course of their development.
The DPRK policy of underground resources development makes a tangible contribution to protection and development of underground resources to fully meet the increasing demands of the national economy for raw materials and fuel, and thus gives the impetus to the building of a thriving socialist country.
The North Korean authorities are apparently proposing to reduce the size of hillside plots farmed privately from thirty pyeong down to ten (1 square meter is equal to 0.3025 pyeong), while all remaining acreage is meant to be handed over to existing cooperative farms.
A source from Hoiryeong in North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on the 29th, “A cadre from the county Party Committee just told a packed meeting of the Union of Democratic Women that ‘the policy is that from this year all private plots of land are to be limited to ten pyeong, and the other twenty will be taken away and assigned to cooperative farms. That which is in the mountains will be used for planting trees’.”
The source continued, “We must also pay fifty won per pyeong in order to farm the ten pyeong that is allowed, and there will be severe penalties for transgressors,” before reiterating a common refrain in conversation with North Korean civilians: “The rations only last for three to four months anyway, so people have to live off their plots of land. Taking away their land is the same as taking away their food.”
From a state policy perspective, the step appears designed to refocus energies on cooperative farming activities, in the hope that this will increase the productive capacity of the official farming sector in an effort to attain the sort of production levels required for the implementation of the June 28th Policy of farming reforms announced domestically in July 2012. However, it is thought unlikely that this will come about, and, conversely, the source predicted that the measure, if widely implemented, would have a detrimental effect on overall output and decrease the amounts of grain entering markets.
Partly this is because, while people are not technically meant to hold more than 30 pyeong of private land, in reality many are cultivating more even than this; in many cases, more even than their formal work unit is responsible for. This is because only by farming soybeans, cabbage, radish and other agricultural goods are many able to eek out a secure living.
Read the full story here:
Farmers in a Muddle over Private Land Order
Daily NK
Kim Kwang-jin
2013-1-30
In preparation for the first anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s death, North Korea is calling attention to its economic achievements.
North Korean media announced that workers in each production sector met the goals of this year to commemorate the death of Kim Jong Il.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on December 7, “To honor the oath of bloody tears made before our Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, with burning hopes to charge ahead to meet the annual People’s Economic Plan, industrial production output reached 100 percent and production of daily necessities reached 113.7 percent, as of December 5.”Specifically, the machinery industrial sector was said to have reached its annual production goal by 107 percent as of the end of November.
Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), also mentioned that a product exhibition was held from December 3rd to 6th in the Pyongyang Department Store No. 1.
In addition, KCNA reported that many hydroelectric power plants across the nation have already exceeded the annual electricity production plan. The KCNA claimed that Sodusu power plant exceeded the annual goal by 120.3 percent, while the Hochon River power plant and Jangjin River power plant reached 107.6 and 109.3 percent, respectively.
North Korean media boasted its economic development and spoke of its economic revitalization strategy. In the KCNA commentary: “We have developed our own economic revitalization strategies for economic development and devotion for this goal is deepening with time.”
North Korea’s recent announcement and actual launch of the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite is also claimed to be an essential process for North Korea’s economic development.
“Unha-3rocket carryingthe satellite Kwangmyongsong-3, was developed by North Korean scientists and engineers by its own technology, and it is a noble achievement for its scientific and technical advancement to realize the goal of economic revival,” stated Choson Sinbo, a Japan-based pro-North Korean newspaper.
Analysts see North Korea’s recent moves (that is, its stressing of economic achievements and the rocket/satellite launch) as Pyongyang’s effort to emphasize the Kim Jong Un regime’s intent to uphold the teachings of the late leader Kim Jong Il through strengthening the economy.
The year 2012 was propagated by North Korea to be the first year of its kangsong taeguk (“strong and prosperous nation”). North Korea is trying to prove to its people that, despite Kim Jong Il’s death, this effort is still continuing under the Kim Jong Un leadership.
In the December 7th article of the KCNA, annual evaluation was made of the various economic achievements. The article called the past year “a historical miracle of a new era,” and “first year of new centennial of juche.” It also stated that a “new historical miracle was created to mark the new era of strong Korea (Chosun) upholding the great teachings of General Kim Jong Il.”
The KCNA mentioned the ‘Day of the Sun’ celebrations and other various celebrations, WPK conference, Kim Jong Un’s onsite visits to military bases, completion of the Huichon Power Station, Pyongyang city park construction, and Moranbong band performances as major achievements of the year.
In addition, the new 12-year compulsory education policy, outstanding performance by North Korean athletes at the 2012 London Olympics (i.e., four gold and one bronze medal), and the commissioning of the new State Culture and SportsGuidance Commission were also mentioned as main accomplishments of the year.
Today the Daily NK offers a scenario as to why the DPRK has not implemented more generous agricultural production incentives:
A Hyesan-based source explained today, “Cooperative farm cadres are saying that none of the experimental farms will be given 30% of their production this year because it has become difficult to meet the target. They are saying that the harvest is not good and they need to feed the military as a matter of priority, so first they’ll guarantee the military rice then give the rest to the farmers.”
A Shinuiju source corroborated the story, saying that the authorities “haven’t said they are going to take all the production from the farms, but nobody actually thinks they are going to get very much. People who trusted the official words are feeling quite stupid, and nobody is working very hard.”
Back in July, each province designated a number of ‘model farms’ that were to be used to test the policy. These farms were supposed to receive their initial inputs of fertilizer and machinery from the state, and then be given 30% of their production in return.
“They are saying that the state does not have enough rice right now and that there is no choice but to give it to the military, so please try to understand,” the source said. “Farm workers, many of whom had been buoyed by talk of food distribution, are really disappointed, especially since prices are sky high in the market these days.”
Anyone who has taken a game theory class will note the presence of credible commitment problems and backwards induction.
If a game consist of two players (the state, farmers) operating in an environment where credible commitment is not attainable, one could argue that an outcome where the state promises to increase agricultural incomes yet farmers work less is the predictable result. Here is why: If at the beginning of the game the state says “we will raise your incomes if you produce more” and farmers respond by producing more, in the absence of credible commitment, at the end of the game the state can simply take all the increased production and pay no more. There is nothing to force the state to actually keep its word once the increased output has already been produced (assuming policy makers with short time horizons). Of course by utilizing backwards induction farmers realize this and do not increase production despite the promise of higher incomes. In the limit case, the DPRK announces economic policy adjustments, nobody believes them, and nobody moves to increase labor supply in the official sector of the peoples’ economy.
If the DPRK wants to offer effective policy adjustments that lead to real increases in output it must not only promise greater material incentives to workers and managers but it must do so in a believable way. Unfortunately there are no simple mechanisms to credibly bind the hands of the North Korean policy makers within the DPRK. In the absence of suitable constraints on state power (broadly defined), this means that reputation capital is even more important for achieving desired policy goals. This is why the decision to back-peddle on the 6.28 agricultural policies, if this is indeed what happened, is perhaps the most damaging move of all in terms of improving economic performance. Taking the North Korean government at its word (reputation capital), the farmers who increased effort in the fields (expecting a 30% ownership of their output in return) have instead given the state a free lunch. They will not be so inclined to increase output the next time the government comes knocking on their door offering dreams of a chicken in every pot.
If the DPRK government hopes to induce workers to increase labor supply through official channels, relying on nothing more than reputation, it is going to have to pay for failing to live up to its economic commitments in the past. In other words, it is going to have to slowly build up its reputation capital again by increasing the incomes of workers through a policy that is not likely to pay off for several years. It is only after workers again feel confident that the state will not back-peddle on the promise to let them retain 30% of their output that they will increase labor supply and output.
Read the full story here:
6.28 Agriculture Policy on the Back Foot Daily NK
Lee Sang Yong
2012-10-12
Pictured Above (Google Earth): Two Google Earth satellite images of Hoeryong (L: 2002-4-27, R: 2008-12-25) which show the construction of residential apartments buildings as well as the town’s new main market.
Hoeryong is a town in North Hamgyong Province that lies across the Tumen (Tuman) River from China. According to North Korean political narratives it is also the childhood home of Kim Jong-il’s mother, Kim Jong-suk. It has been the the site of a large construction boom in the last five years, and now, according to the Daily NK, Chinese tourists are being brought in on very limited itineraries. According to the article:
The Hoiryeong source explained, “North Hamkyung Province ‘shock troops’ and military unit construction teams have been here for three years on Kim Jong Il’s orders for the construction, and now it is finished.” Local households were asked to contribute 12,000 North Korean Won each to the construction effort, he added.
Hoiryeong used to have few buildings with five floors, but now it has a considerable number of new four and five floor apartment buildings built around the center of the city, as well as a number of newly built commercial facilities. Buildings in the downtown core have also been spruced up with external lighting, a project that began last April.
There are a number of new restaurants in the area. One, ‘Hoiryeonggwan’, has been decorated in the style of Pyongyang’s famous ‘Okryugwan’, something that Kim Jong Il is said to have ordered in December 2010 when he visited the construction site. Elsewhere, restaurants serving spicy marinated beef, duck, dog and Chinese food have also opened their doors.
However, these restaurants only currently open on the weekend or when Chinese tour groups make an advanced reservation, according to the source, who revealed that local people regard the construction effort more as an attempt to generate tourist revenue than to make it a real ‘model city’, as the official propaganda claims.
“Chinese tourists come, then they visit the statue of Kim Jong Suk and the place where she grew up, and then they are taken to one or other of the restaurants,” the source said. “They drink and make merry then go, all without visiting any scenic spots; thus, the authorities make money.”
As with other tourist operations, it is possible that this small step will lead to a softening of restrictive tourism regulations and potentially the arrival of Western tourists. But don’t hold your breath! Chinese tourists have been visiting Sinuiju on a regular basis, but westerners are generally still prohibited from touring the city
Pictured above (Google Earth): The DPRK’s State Planning Commission (국가계획위원회) in Pyongyang
UPDATE 21 (2012-11-15): Writing in 38 North, Randall Ireson offers a succinct, comprehensive assessment of the DPRK agriculture system and offers policy advice moving forward. See the full article here.
UPDATE 20 (2012-11-12):Chris Green at the Daily NK points out anecdotal evidence that economic policy changes are still underway in the DPRK:
As noted by Yonhap in an article yesterday, recent days have seen multiple uses of phrases including “new management method” in the North Korean media, lending weight to the suggestion that a number of new economic measures have already been put into practice.
For example, last week on the 7th, state domestic and international radio broadcaster Chosun Central Broadcast ran a recording of a meeting of forestry workers at the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang.
During the event, which was attended by high regime officials including Cabinet Prime Minister Choi Young Rim, the manager of a wooden goods manufacturer in Hamheung declared, “I will keep updating our industrial strategy and tactics in accordance with the demands of the new economic management method and give our management substance in order that we may secure the greatest possible profit and raise the productivity of investment.”
The words raise the question of whether factories such as that of the manager in question are actually acting autonomously in terms of management decisions, rather than simply taking orders from agencies higher up the food chain. If so, it would imply the implementation of new economic rules.
On a similar note, a November 9th article carried as part of a series by the Chongryon publication Choson Shinbo under the title ‘The Road to Our-style Economic Revival’ noted the introduction of a “new management method” in a piece on how Pyongyang’s No.1 Department Store has been changing in order to improve customer service.
Choson Shinbo has a history of reporting North Korean economic changes first, including the July 1st Economic Management Improvement Measures of 2001, making it one outlet for North Korea news worth keeping an eye on.
Reviewing the anecdotal evidence for the introduction of new measures, Cho Bong Hyun of Industrial Bank of Korea’s research arm told Yonhap, “The phrase ‘new economic management method’ shows that the new economic management measures that they never officially revealed have already been implemented. If their confidence in the new economic system grows, they will doubtless begin to present them as the achievements of Kim Jong Eun.”
UPDATE 19 (2012-10-19): Contrary to other claims (below), CCTV (China) reports that the agriculture policy changes have been implemented:
North Korea’s new economic policy, otherwise known as the ‘June 28 Measure,’ was to go into effect from October 1, 2012 but it is reported that enforcement of various educational and action plans related to the new economic management measure was halted.
According to the Internet news agency, Daily NK, its sources inside North Korea informed that, “From this month, the authorities in charge of implementing various plans preparing for the new economic measures, suddenly stopped educational and other related programs without any notice.”
Starting this July, North Korea began to make announcement through the Third Broadcast, to educate and inform specific plans related to the new economic measure to the North Korean residents. The Third Broadcast is an internal cable broadcasting system usually used to deliver important message to its residents.
The main objectives for the new economic management improvement measures are to improve autonomy in the factories and cooperative farms and the food distribution system. However, speculations began to surface that the new economic policy will be postponed after the Supreme People’s Assembly was convened on September 25, with no mentioning of economic measures or laws, contrary to expectations.
Since the plans for the new economic policy was announced to the public, exchange rates and market prices began to soar, creating hyperinflation phenomenon.
If North Korea continues to postpone the economic improvement plan, is likely to lead to adverse consequences as it can amplify the anxiety amongst the residents and the market, as many were already skeptical of the new economic measures.
On the other hand, production units reveal of its preparatory actions toward the new economic policy. Each factories and companies are submitting production indexes to the senior departments under the Cabinet and receiving evaluations according to its reports. Some factories are switching operations after obtaining outside capital, while other insolvent companies were closed down.
One example is Chongjin chemical factory. After forming a joint venture company with China, it was renamed to Chongjin Paper Production Factory. With over 3,000 employees, it will become one of the top three companies in the Chongjin area — after Chongjin Steel Works and Kim Chaek Iron Works.
UPDATE 17 (2012-10-15): The Daily NK offers a scenario for why an adjustment in agricultural production incentives have not been implemented: a bad harvest has forced policy makers to reconsider allowing the cooperative farms to keep so much of their produce. According to the article:
A Hyesan-based source explained today, “Cooperative farm cadres are saying that none of the experimental farms will be given 30% of their production this year because it has become difficult to meet the target. They are saying that the harvest is not good and they need to feed the military as a matter of priority, so first they’ll guarantee the military rice then give the rest to the farmers.”
A Shinuiju source corroborated the story, saying that the authorities “haven’t said they are going to take all the production from the farms, but nobody actually thinks they are going to get very much. People who trusted the official words are feeling quite stupid, and nobody is working very hard.”
Back in July, each province designated a number of ‘model farms’ that were to be used to test the policy. These farms were supposed to receive their initial inputs of fertilizer and machinery from the state, and then be given 30% of their production in return.
“They are saying that the state does not have enough rice right now and that there is no choice but to give it to the military, so please try to understand,” the source said. “Farm workers, many of whom had been buoyed by talk of food distribution, are really disappointed, especially since prices are sky high in the market these days.”
However, the Hyesan source also said that a lot of people are prepared to wait and see until at least mid December, when harvest processing concludes and distribution can be finalized. “People assume that Kim Jong Eun won’t want to disappoint the people in his first year in power,” he explained.
UPDATE 16 (2012-101-9): The Daily NK reports that North Koreans are confused about what has happened to the new economic policies that were under discussion:
The North Korean authorities originally began to announce news of the new economic system domestically in July, outlining increasing managerial autonomy, changes to payment systems and new farm procurement regulations. There were even some less detailed announcements on North Korea’s fixed line ‘3rd Broadcast’ system, which is used to disseminate propaganda handed down from the very top of the Party.
However, late last month signs of abnormality began to appear. Although few local people thought the measures would be publicly adopted at the extraordinary session of the Supreme People’s Assembly on September 25th, the source said they didn’t expect all references to the policy to disappear.
According to the source, cadres suspect that the authorities are not yet prepared to roll out the policy in practice. Many are not surprised; they say it was impractical to expect the policy to be executed in just three months, given that the July 1st Economic Management Improvement Measures of 2002 took nine months to come to fruition after a policy statement was first issued by Kim Jong Il on October 4th, 2001.
The surrounding economic conditions are far from ideal, also. Since the announcement of the new economic measures, North Korea’s markets have been facing hyperinflation conditions rooted in a sky-high Chinese Yuan exchange rate.
However, it is still considered unlikely that the policy has been cancelled altogether, since that would carry heavy consequences for regime legitimacy. Also, the authorities have advertised the policy to the international community in a number of stories (though not in the state media), and it would not serve the regime’s purposes to lie openly about this particular issue.
In addition, it is actually extremely rare for the authorities to cancel a policy after it has been announced under any circumstances; in any case, sources continue to report that those agencies charged with preparing the implementation of the new economic measures are still operational. The current status of factories is being assessed by units dispatched by the Party and the Cabinet is issuing new production targets. Some factories are pursuing outside capital, and work to consolidate under-performing enterprises is ongoing.
One example is Chongjin Chemical Works. Recently, the factory entered a partnership with a Chinese firm and changed its name to Chongjin Paper Factory. The factory is one of Chongjin’s three major Level 1 enterprises, and has a workforce of 3,000. However, it had actually been offline since the 1980s.
If history is any guide, a session of the SPA is not a place where new economic policies are declared. Even though there have been some exceptions to this rule, like for instance the promulgation of the 1984 Joint Venture Law. Admittedly, at that time, the SPA was more important because had the job of approving the economic plans of the state. Such plans are a thing of the past now, and economic pronouncements have become significantly less common at SPA sessions.
Over the last three decades, nearly all important economic measures were not introduced at SPA sessions, and as a matter of fact were usually not mentioned at all.
Good examples are provided by what were arguably the two most important economic measures introduced by the North Korean government since the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 – the economic reforms of 2002, and the currency reform of 2009.
The ‘First of July Economic Management Improvement Measures’ of 2002 were much overrated in the foreign media at the time, but nonetheless constituted the most radical attempt ever undertaken to reform the North Korean economy by Kim Jong Il and his advisors. The reforms legalized many market activities, provided industrial managers with significant autonomy in decision making, and also increased state procurement and consumer prices to levels comparable to the black market at the time (for example, one kilo of rice before the reform was officially priced at 0.08 won, after the reforms the price had been raised to 44 won – a near 500-fold increase).
The 2002 reforms were soon rolled back, but what is important here is the fact that the world was to learn about the reforms not when they were first introduced in July, but some two months later, when some mentions of the reforms began appearing in official publications. This might sound strange to a Western reader, but measures that significantly changed the economic life of the country remained unreported by the official media for a significant amount of time (and indeed were never fully explained).
The currency reform of 2009 presents us with an even more striking example of a well-arranged complete media blackout. The reform itself produced the greatest economic and social upheaval in North Korea since the famine of the 1990s. The North Korean populace was suddenly told that the currency they held was now null and void, and could be exchanged for new notes in limited amounts (usually only to the equivalent of few months of official salaries). At the same time, the use of foreign currencies was banned, and markets and state-run shops were closed. For a few months in early 2010, even members of the Pyongyang elite experienced difficulties in getting their daily rice. According to foreign observers in Pyongyang, popular discontent was palpable and for a brief while, a violent collapse of law and order appeared possible.
This dramatic upheaval of course was completely ignored by the North Korean media; TV, radio and newspapers failed to mention the fact that retail trade was at a complete standstill and the fact that a currency reform was underway. All information was provided to the average North Korea through the cable radio network – officially known as ‘radio number 3’, as well as through confidential letters sent to petty officials and bank clerks. North Korean media outlets also sometimes mentioned the currency reform – of course whilst extolling its alleged virtues – but in the domestic media references to the reform were a complete taboo.
UPDATE 14 (2012-9-28): The Daily NK reports that in addition to agriculture and industrial policy adjustments, it appears that the DPRK is planning to reorganize, “rationalize”, and possibly close, many state owned enterprises:
The central authorities are planning to merge uncompetitive factories and enterprises with stronger ones as North Korea prepares to embark on the full implementation of the so-called ‘June 28th Policy’, Daily NK has learned.
This process is being undertaken to give those enterprises that remain the best chance of competing under the new rules that are due to enter force in the coming days.
An overseas Chinese trader explained the situation to Daily NK on the 27th, saying, “A whole bunch of traders who were in China on business trips started rushing back to North Korea. They had heard that the authorities planned to rationalize the number of small and medium size enterprises so they headed back in a hurry to investigate for themselves.”
“The word is that they are going to get rid of those enterprises that don’t turn a profit for the people and aren’t helpful to the development of the country. A lot of these workers are getting calls from their companies and going back,” the source went on. “It’s meant to be about getting rid of weak and loss-making enterprises in advance of bringing in the new economic improvement measures.”
The latest moves form part of a process that began in mid-July, when Central Party teams made up of personnel from the department of the State Planning Commission responsible for production facilities, their provincial equivalents and the Central Prosecutors Office were dispatched to the regions to assess the state of existing production facilities. At that time, Daily NK reported that “Because it’s an inspection of production facilities, managers in charge of those facilities have also been called in [by the inspection teams].”
According to a second source, employees from companies slated for elimination are to be reassigned to the company merging with them. He explained, “Rather than simply get rid of enterprises and factories, they are trying to either merge them with bigger companies or with companies in the same sector.”
Although workers assigned to unproductive enterprises are understandably keen to move to a company with even a modest amount of potential, the state of the broader North Korean economy has nevertheless put most in a state of ‘50% anticipation, 50% fear’ over what will come next. At the time of writing, the price of rice has reached an outlandish 6700 won/kg even in Pyongyang itself, while also arriving at 7000 won in Onsung County and 6500 won in Hyesan, putting those people without foreign currency in a very difficult situation.
Another major problem is that while the official aim of the policy is to retain only those enterprises that are capable of implementing the tenets of the June 28th Policy effectively, only around 30% of North Korean enterprises are fully functioning, which means that there are around 70% in an uncompetitive condition. Therefore, it seems inevitable that some uncompetitive enterprises will have to be kept, and these are likely to be a drain on the economy in the short to medium term.
Not only that. In the words of the source, “For the workers from weak companies the opportunity to work for a bigger company in a better atmosphere is pleasing, but they also know that economic changes have never succeeded in North Korea, and in fact have periodically made things worse.”
UPDATE 13 (2012-9-23): The Associated Press (via Washington Post) offers on-the-record accounts by farmers in the DPRK talking about agriculture reforms:
North Korean farmers who have long been required to turn most of their crops over to the state may now be allowed to keep their surplus food to sell or barter in what could be the most significant economic change enacted by young leader Kim Jong Un since he came to power nine months ago.
The proposed directive appears aimed at boosting productivity at collective farms that have struggled for decades to provide for the country’s 24 million people. By giving farmers such an incentive to grow more food, North Korea could be starting down the same path as China when it first began experimenting with a market-based economy.
Two workers at a farm south of Pyongyang told The Associated Press about the new rules on Sunday, saying they were informed of the proposed changes during meetings last month and that they should take effect with this year’s upcoming fall harvest. The Ministry of Agriculture has not announced the changes, some of which have been widely rumored abroad but never previously made public outside North Korea’s farms.
Farmers currently must turn everything over to the state beyond what they are allowed to keep for their families. Under the new rules, they would be able to keep any surplus after they have fulfilled state-mandated quotas — improving morale and giving farmers more of a chance to manage their plots and use the crops as a commodity.
“We expect a good harvest this year,” said O Yong Ae, who works at Migok Cooperative Farm, one of the largest and most productive farms in South Hwanghae Province in southwestern North Korea. “I’m happy because we can keep the crops we worked so hard to grow.”
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At cooperative farms across the country, the government doles out fuel, seeds and fertilizer, and farmers pay the government back for the supplies, said Kang Su Ik, a professor at Wonsan Agricultural University.
The farmers’ crops go into the Public Distribution System, which aims to provide North Koreans with 600 to 700 grams of rice or cornmeal a day. However, a persistent shortfall of more than 400,000 tons a year in staple grains has meant lower rations all around, according to the United Nations, which has appealed for donations to help North Korea make up for the shortage.
Under the previous system, each farmer could keep as much as 360 kilos of corn or rice a year to consume or sell at the market, in addition to what they grow in their own courtyards. The rest was turned over to the state to distribute as rations, Kang said.
The proposed changes would reverse the equation, challenging farmers to meet a state quota and then allowing them to do as they wish with the rest, including saving it for themselves, selling it at the local farmer’s market or bartering it for other goods.
Farmers also would have more control over tending their plots. At Migok, 1,780 farmers work in teams of about 100. In the future, sub-teams of about 20 to 30 farmers are expected to have more say in how to tend their crops, said Kim Yong Ae, who oversees the visitor’s center at Migok, where a patchwork of rice paddies stretches as far as the eye can see.
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O, who lives with her rice farmer husband and two young sons in Migok’s Apricot Village, brightened up when she said the family expects a surplus this year. Migok was unaffected by the summer rains that destroyed farmland elsewhere in the country, and their private garden is bursting with fruit trees, vegetables and marigolds.
Still, she said they would probably donate their extra rice to the state anyway — an offering known in North Korea as “patriotic rice.”
UPDATE 12 (2012-9-19): The Korea Herald reports that Pyongyang is planning to loosen its control over some state-owned enterprises.
North Korea is moving to introduce a full-scale cash-payment system for transactions among light-industry state firms in the latest apparent move to revamp its planned economy, a source in the communist state said.
The measure, seen as aimed at boosting industrial efficiency by ensuring greater autonomy for non-backbone businesses, could pose risks by loosening the long-standing state control, analysts say.
The adoption of cash transactions marks a departure from the long-held “scriptural-money” system in which each firm uses an account in the central bank when it transacts with others to secure raw materials, electricity, machines and other means of production.
Cashless transactions were a useful tool for the authoritarian regime to keep track of the currency flow and companies’ business activities. Cash payments risk weakening state oversight, experts noted.
In its economic reform of July 2002, Pyongyang partially introduced cash transactions among companies in a controlled production-material exchange market. But the new measure seeks a full-scale adoption of cash payments, the source said.
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“The change means a collapse of the long-held system in which the authorities provide all means of production to each firm. Kim Jong-un has no other option but to push for the urgent task of reviving the economy.”
The North is expected to apply the cash-payment system mostly to provincial firms that produce consumer goods, while keeping the old system for military, heavy-industry and chemical firms to keep its control over the strategically vital ones, the source said.
News reports suggest that the North will offer to each firm an “initial investment” to cover their production costs and allow each to determine its production items, price and selling methods.
The seemingly greater autonomy, however, reflects the degree of the North Korean authorities’ inability to sustain the planned economic mechanism with sources of external assistance seriously limited amid deepening isolation.
Experts are skeptical of the measures to give more autonomy to companies whose overall operation rate is said to stand at around 20-30 percent because of the regime’s failure to provide necessary means of production.
“At any rate, companies in the North are suffering with their operation almost at a standstill. The North, through the measure, aims to normalize their production function by offering more autonomy in their management,” said Kwon Young-kyong, professor at the state-run Institute for Unification Education.
“But the state has little cash (for the initial provision of capital to kick-start the firms). We still have to wait and see how the measure will unfold.”
Kim Joong-ho, senior researcher at the Export-Import Bank of Korea, also painted a negative outlook for the cash-payment scheme, underscoring that the North should first establish the necessary financial and monetary infrastructure.
“North Korea’s currency is now seen as a scrap of paper (due to a poorly managed currency value). Using cash is workable when there is trustable, stable financial, currency management apparatus. Thus there remain problems of practicality and efficiency,” he said.
“As evidenced in the 2009 devaluation of its currency, North Korea’s cash has lost its function to store fiduciary value. Meanwhile, people have also experienced the benefit and power of foreign currency, particularly Chinese yuan.”
The devastating currency reform three years ago was aimed at stemming the spread of marketplaces, which became rampant as the food rationing system failed to function following the severe famine, dubbed the “Arduous March,” in the mid-1990s.
Like other socialist states, North Korea has maintained a dual payment system ― cash in the form of monthly wage for regular people and scriptural money for inter-company transactions.
Scriptural money is aimed at preventing the state’s non-cash resources allotted for each firm from turning into cash, flowing into the household sector and complicating its control of the currency and overall economic activities.
The dual system has been crumbling as more firms use cash to secure means of production while the overall economic system is on the verge of collapse with the regime running out of monetary and material resources to maintain the planned mechanism.
What is crucial for its economic reestablishment, experts say, is that the North first establish a banking system, through which people can confidently store their wealth, with companies benefitting from the financial system through stable investment and other methods.
The North is set to hold a rare session of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly next Tuesday during which some observers expect Pyongyang to announce new laws for its overall economic reform.
The level of the North’s possible reform is hard to predict, experts say, stressing that Pyongyang has repeated a pattern of employing what appear to be reform measures only to retract them when they were deemed to pose a threat to the dynastic regime.
Pyongyang’s desire for economic reform has been detected in a flurry of recent media reports and academic documents.
The front page of the Tuesday edition of the Rodong Sinmun, the daily of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, was filled with economy-related articles while pushing the article on Kim Jong-un, first secretary of the party, to the second page ― an exceptionally unusual article arrangement.
Last month, the North introduced a set of research papers by its scholars concerning topics ranging from the state control over the financial sector to the importance of currency circulation. They raised the prospect for possible financial reform.
The paper by Kim Un-chol, professor at Kim Il-sung University, said, “The country should strengthen state control over the financial sector to achieve a more stable economic development.”
