North Korean Economy Watch

By Michael Rank

Pictured above: North Korean tiger bone wine in Rason tourist shop (Source here)

Chinese visitors to North Korea are increasingly bringing back endangered wildlife products, a Chinese website reports.

Between January and July this year Dandong customs have confiscated 137 bottles of tiger bone wine, five bears’ gall bladders weighing 172 grams and five boxes of powdered bears’ gall bladders weighing 50 grams.

It gave no further details but said such confiscations have increased with the growing numbers of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea. It noted that under China’s law on trade in endangered species traffickers can be fined or in more serious cases face criminal proceedings.

North Korea is known to have been involved in rhino horn smuggling in Africa and tiger bone wine is available in tourist shops in North Korea where it is popular with Chinese visitors on account of its alleged aphrodisiac properties. But it is not clear how much, if any, tiger bone the wine actually contains, or where it is derived from.

There is strong demand for bile from bears’ gall bladders throughout East Asia, with large numbers of bears being farmed for this purpose in China and South Korea, although the governments of both countries say the industry is coming under increasingly strict control. Little is known about bear farms in North Korea.

According to Yonhap:

The number of North Korean visitors to China increased drastically since then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s tour of the North’s biggest communist ally early last year, Chinese government data shows.

The data on the entry of foreigners obtained Sunday by Yonhap News Agency showed that 152,000 North Koreans entered China in 2011, a sharp rise from 116,000 the previous year. Out of the total, 114,000 were businessmen and laborers.

The comparable figures were 116,000 in 2010, 103,000 in 2009, 101,000 in 2008, 113,000 in 2007 and 110,000 in 2006.

The sharp rise is attributed to the visit to China by late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in May last year, apparently to enhance bilateral economic cooperation.

The Beijing government said at the time that Kim was invited “so he could have the chance to grasp the developments in China and make the most of them for the development of North Korea.”

The number of North Korean visitors to China will likely increase further this year as China has received 88,000 North Koreans for the first six months this year alone.

Read the full story here:
N. Korean visitors to China rise drastically since last year: data
Yonhap
2012-7-29

The first collaborative film project between the DPRK and western producers, Comrade Kim Goes Flying, will premier at the 2012 Pyongyang International Film Festival.

If you would like to attend the film festival with Koryo Tours to see the film, click here.

Yonhap reports:

As the North’s first romantic comedy feature film, the movie was produced by the communist country in partnership with Belgian producer Anja Daelemans and British-run travel agency Koryo Tours’ official Nick Bonner. The film was shot in Pyongyang with North Korean cast and crew, according to the report.

The biennial festival also plans to screen feature films including “Mr. Bean,” “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” and a South African movie titled “Cry, The Beloved Country,” the report said, citing Koryo Tours, which runs tour programs to the North for the film fest.

Without giving too much away, the plot of the film revolves around the daughter of a coal miner who wants to be a gymnast in Pyongyang.

UPDATE: This story was picked up in the New York Times on 2012-7-30.

According to Yonhap:

The total number of South and North Koreans visiting each other’s country fell nearly seven percent in the first five months of 2012 from a year earlier, the Seoul government said Tuesday, as tensions persist over the North’s deadly attacks on the South in recent years.

A total of 47,432 South Koreans visited North Korea in the January-May period, while no North Koreans visited the South, according to data from the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs. The figure is down 6.9 percent from the same period last year, when the number of inter-Korean visits reached 50,925, including 13 North Koreans who visited the South.

Read the full story here:
Inter-Korean visits drop 7 pct this year
Yonhap
2012-7-10

Koryo Tours reports:

Last year, around 3,500 Western and 40,000 Chinese tourists traveled to North Korea, according to Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which accounts for about 50% of the Western tourists each year. That total includes American citizens.

“We would estimate that around 500 or 600 American citizens visit every year,” Nick Bonner, a Brit who founded Koryo in 1993, told Ad Age in an email interview. “There is a lot more to the country then you hear about from either North Korean or Western press.

Read the full story here:
Curious Westerners Making North Korea a Vacation Spot
AdAgeGlobal
Rupal Parekh
2012-6-12

According to Choson Exchange:

Chinese tourists will have visa free access to the border regions linking Yanbian Autonomous Region, Rason Special Economic Zone and Russia, according to a report originating with Jilin Radio that surfaced in South Korean media today.

The report doesn’t give an date for implementation, but does state that the previous tourism agreement governing the border region (signed in 2010) will be streamlined. It still takes 10 days for a Chinese traveler to get permission to visit Rason. This process will drop to 2-3 days.

If accurate, this could go a long way towards boosting tourism in the SEZ. After all, a Beijinger or Shanghaiian might well be more willing to spend the money to visit the region if they can get two countries in the same trip. At the risk of overgeneralizing, Asian tourists seem eager maximize passport stamps above all else on international tours. This desire could be effectively exploited if Rason and Russia’s Primorsky Krai province coordinate their marketing.

Also, now that the road to Rason is paved, the ease with which Chinese gamblers can reach the Emperor Casino and Hotel greatly increases and arguably makes the destination seem more normal and therefore attractive. One wonders if the casino’s fleet of crimson humvees, once needed to whisk high-rollers along the laborious dirt road from, will now be replaced by Mercedes or Lexuses. (Lexi?)

Last year, the SEZ experimented with self-drive tours for Chinese citizens, though there has yet to be any follow-up on it.

For westerner tourists thinking of visiting Rason, we recommend Krahun, a company that has had a presence in Rason for over a decade and know the region exceptionally well.

Read the full story here:
Visa Free Rason Tourism for Chinese Citizens
Choson Exchange
Andray Abrahamian
2012-5-29

Rain ruined my plans this Saturday morning, so I thought I would play around on Google Earth. Today’s target: the newly completed KPA Exhibition of Arms and Equipment in Pyongyang.

Pictured above (KCNA): Kim Jong-un formally opens the exhibition. Pyongyang Times coverage here and here (PDF).

It is located in Mangyongdae-guyok and is sandwiched between the Kim Il-sung Military University and the Sosan Sports District. The Google Earth imagery of the facility is too old to show the completed structure, but there is enough construction to be positive about the location. Below, I have used Google Earth to draw out more of the facility using North Korean video footage:

The work I did on the image above is based on video footage of Kim Jong-un’s visit.  You can see the video footage here. If there is anyone out there who is trained to identify North Korean military equipment, I would like to know more about what is on display here.

Visitors to the exhibit can peruse all sorts of armored vehicles, airplanes, artillery, and navy equipment. There is space for an open air orchestra and choir to perform. There is also a small train ride that travels around the exhibit giving riders the chance to get a quick glance of the KPA’s military machines as they pass by.

The video taken of the facility shows that at least some foreign visitors were welcomed to see the museum.  This begs the question of whether foreign tourists in general will be allowed to inspect the KPA machinery and whether they will be allowed to take pictures of it. Maybe there is even a bar?

According to the Google Earth calculations, the main exhibit hall is 117m x 73m. The second exhibit hall is 77m x 60m.

Previously, this plot of land was occupied by a football field and the remains of the long-defunct Pyongyang Baseball/Softball stadium.

Kim Jong-il Flies: Recently KCTV has broadcast many videos on the life and work of Kim Jong-il. One of these videos was on Kim Jong-il’s contributions to the theatrical and cinematic arts.  In this video, Kim Jong-il can be seen riding in a plane while he scouts out locations for movie sets:

I have watched more North Korean television footage than a healthy person should, but this was the first video footage I had seen of Kim Jong-il on a plane.

Alejandro Cao de Benos once told me that Kim Jong-il could fly fighter jets, though I have not seen any footage of that.

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Koryo Tours has a great Facebook Page.  Here are some of the gems that have popped up over the last few weeks:

Pasty, fast food (yum):

DPRK Tourist Card:

In the next few days Koryo Tours will be offering a brand new tourist route in the DPRK, from Rason down the East Coast to Chongjin and Mt. Chilbo, previously only accessible by charter flight from Pyongyang.

Take On Me by a-ha, North Korean Style (YouTube):

A-ha’s “Take on me” performed by young accordion players from the Kum Song School, filmed in Pyongyang, North Korea December 2011. Part of multi-genre project The Promised Land by director and artist Morten Traavik. Here is more information on the video.

Ceausescu’s visit to Pyongyang, North Korea in 1971:

I believe this clip comes from a feature film: The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010) (trailer here).

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DPRK Gatorade: North Korea is making its own-style sports drink. Here is a link to the report on KCNA (posted to YouTube):

This drink is manufactured in the Kumkop Combined Foodstuff Factory (금컵체육인종합식료공장) in Mangyongdae District. Satellite image and coordinates here.

The PR of China published official data on the number of North Koreans that visited the country in 2011. The numbers were originally reported in this Voice of America report (in Korean). The VOA story was covered in English by two Korean news sources, and I have posted them below.

It is important to remember that these are official Chinese numbers, therefore they represent a lower bound of the actual numbers of North Koreans crossing the border.

According to the Daily NK:

China’s National Tourism Administration has revealed that the number of North Koreans legally visiting the country reached a new high in 2011.

According to a report carried by Voice of America yesterday, the 152,300 North Koreans who visited China last year exceeded the 2010 figure of 116,400 by more than 30%, and comfortably beat the previous high of 125,800 recorded in 2005.

Approximately half (75,266) the total number of visitors apparently went for work, while a further 39,042 went for business purposes or to attend meetings. 4,589 were tourists. However, the statistics show that just 99 of the visits were for the purpose of visiting relatives.

72,885 of the visitors were age 45 through 64, while a further 64,823 fell into the 25 to 44 bracket. Women were heavily outnumbered by men; 21,828 against 130,472.

Yonhap reported an additional point:

Ferries were the most popular means of transport for the North Koreans at 62,160 passengers, followed by 33,933 who arrived by plane, 31,829 by car, 19,132 by train and 5,246 by foot.

Although the majority of official North Koreans border crossers are men, it is reasonable to assume that the majority of unofficial North Korean border crossers are women.

Read the full stories here:
Largest-ever number of N. Koreans visited China in 2011: report
Yonhap
2012-2-10

Official Visitor Numbers Hit New High
Daily NK
Park Seong Guk
2012-2-10

According to ABC’s “The Drum“:

The Dandong Jinhua International Travel Service is just one of a handful of small companies organising tours out of Dandong, Liaoning Province, in the north-east of China.

Dandong, a city of almost 800,000 sits on the Chinese side of the historic Yalu River bridge – which was bombed by the United States at the start of the Korean War. By night, tourists stand on the foreshore taking snaps of the renovated brightly lit bridge that connects the two countries – and the total blackout that exists on the other side.

Staff at the travel company say usually they operate tours of about 60 people per day, or 30,000 per year. But during the Chinese National Holidays, which run for 10 days in October, almost 600 tourists returned in one day alone. The mass number of China travellers highlights how North Korea – known in the West as a reclusive nuclear-armed communist country – is still an attractive tourist destination for their neighbouring comrades.

Once in the reclusive country, there are heavy restrictions on what travellers can see and do.

Photos are limited to official tourist sites and the North Korean guides constantly put the hard word on anyone caught sneaking snaps out the bus or train windows. One the way out of North Korea at Sinuiju city, one Chinese tourist had ‘unsuitable’ photos deleted by the guards.

Tourists are also prohibited from straying too far from the group. On top of that the itinerary is tightly managed, meaning tourists only get to see a glimpse of what Pyongyang and a few other national hotspots have on offer.

Tours have also been met with some unexpected hiccups.

“On one winter trip the train had to stay overnight at the Sinuiju stop, with all the passengers on board. Everyone was so unhappy the North Korean guides gave them a Kim Il Sung pin”, says one tour organiser, adding that the national pins worn by all North Koreans are almost impossible for tourists to purchase.

Now trips are closed from November to January because there’s not enough electricity to run the trains.

…

Other travel groups also operate out of Dandong offering even more favourable prices than the Dandong Jinhua International Travel Service. Their four-day tour is 2,400 yuan ($370) and an additional 800 yuan to see the Mass Games – an enormous synchronised performing arts act, staged every summer in Pyongyang. It’s 4,800 yuan ($739) for foreigners, excluding Americans.

Read the full story here:
A North Korean holiday
ABC “The Drum”
Kitty Hamilton
2012-1-11