North Korean Economy Watch

Yonhap
11/18/2007

A North Korean delegation is visiting Wall Street to meet financiers and attend a seminar that could help the isolated communist country gain access to the international financial system, sources here said on Sunday.

The six-member delegation led by Ki Kwang-ho, a director at the North Korean Finance Ministry, arrived here on Thursday for the two-day-long session, which starts Monday. The U.S. side is to be represented by Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser and other officials involved in ending Pyongyang’s suspected illicit activities.

The visit by the North’s delegation, the first of its kind, comes about one year after the release of some US$25 million in North Korean funds that were frozen at a Macau bank over their alleged connection to money laundering and other illegal activities.

Although the assets were released in a one-time transaction through the international financial system, the North has said it wants full access to the system without financial sanctions from the U.S., which has considerable influence over the global market.

The delegation’s visit also coincides with recent progress in the multilateral negotiations for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, in which Washington is negotiating with Pyongyang on the removal of the North from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and the termination of the application of its Trading with the Enemy Act.

Washington, one of major shareholders in the International Monetary Fund and other lending institutions, is obliged by law to oppose any loans to countries on the list.

The North Korean financial officials met with financiers at the heart of global finance here Saturday to discuss international financing for the isolated communist state, informed sources said.

Donald Gregg, chairman of the New York-based Korea Society, quoted the North Koreans as saying Friday that they came to learn about ways to get access to the international financial system.

While attending a seminar sponsored by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the North Koreans asked about know how to join the IMF and other international financial institutions, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said.

Another North Korea expert, however, predicted a long and bumpy road ahead for the North, saying the isolated, impoverished communist state needs a lot of manpower, experience and technologies before joining the international financial system.

Yonhap
11/19/2007

A South Korean company operating businesses in North Korea said Monday it plans to add the North’s capital to the itinerary for future tours of the North’s highest peak, located on the border with China.

Hyundai Asan, the North Korean business arm of Hyundai Group, is preparing to launch tours of Mount Paekdu in May next year, after the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to establish direct flights from Seoul to the mountain at the second-ever inter-Korean summit early last month.

“We already asked South and North Korean authorities to include Pyongyang in the tour route to Mt. Paekdu,” said Yoon Man-joon, chief executive officer of Hyundai Asan.

Yoon said he was “optimistic” about adding the North Korean capital to the route because the North shared a “similar view as a business partner.”

Yoon made the remark during a press conference at North Korea’s Mt. Geumgang, where the company operates the only South Korean tourism business in the North, to mark the ninth anniversary of the start of the tourism project.

Although Yoon gave no exact timetable for the Pyongyang tours for ordinary South Koreans, company officials hinted they will probably be available in early 2009.

The Mt. Geumgang tourism program, which started in 1998, is the only one that gives foreign tourists an opportunity to easily see parts of North Korea.

Hyundai Asan is believed to pay hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to North Korea in fees for the program, which has drawn more than 1.5 million tourists.

At the inter-Korean summit last month, President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed that their countries would work together on a wide range of economic projects, even though the two states are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice.

Korea Times
Jung Sung-ki
11/19/2007

South Korea is considering directly supplying electricity to Anbyeon on North Korea’s east coast, where a South Korean-funded ship block plant is to be constructed next year, to help ease the power shortage there, a government source said Monday.

“The government has concluded after a recent on-site inspection that without resolving the electricity issue, the plan to build a shipbuilding complex (in Anbyeon) would not be successful,” the source said, asking not to be named.

“So the government is considering taking the initiative to resolve the problem, so that the private sector can stably invest in the inter-Korean business program,” he said.

The two Koreas are to break ground for a shipyard in Anbyeon, Gangwon Province, during the first half of next year as part of large-scale cross-border economic projects agreed upon at the second inter-Korean summit last month.

A group of South Korean officials and shipbuilding businessmen visited the town early this month.

South Koreas plans to propose North Korea the option of a direct supply of electricity next month when a second inspection team visits Anbyeon, the source added.

Experts say the project will cost a sizable amount.

It will require hundreds of billions of won to build steel pipes, transmitters and transmission roads from the northeastern town of Goseong in the South to Anbyeon, a 130-kilometer route, they say.

In case of the Kaeseong Industrial Complex, just a few kilometers north of the inter-Korean border, South Korea spent 35 billion won ($38 million) to build electricity supplying facilities.

The electricity supply will require consultation with countries involving in multinational talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear ambition, as energy aid is one of the key incentives for the communist state in return for its denuclearization efforts.

The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have engaged in six-party talks to scrap North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Washington Post
Blaine Harden
Sunday, November 18, 2007; A01

SEOUL — Brokers here are busily selling what they call “planned escapes” from North Korea.

Given enough money, the brokers say, they can now get just about anyone out of the dictatorial Stalinist state that human rights activists call the world’s largest prison.

A low-budget escape through China via Thailand to Seoul, which requires treacherous river crossings, arduous travel on foot and several miserable weeks in a Thai immigration jail, can cost less than $2,000, according to four brokers here.

A first-class defection, complete with a forged Chinese passport and an airplane ticket from Beijing to Seoul, goes for more than $10,000. From start to finish, it can take as little as three weeks.

North Korea’s underground railroad to the South is busier than ever because the number of border guards and low-level security officials in the North who are eager to take bribes has increased exponentially.

With the disintegration of North Korea’s communist economy and the near-collapse of its state-run food distribution system, the country’s non-elite population is in dire need of cash for food and other essentials, experts agree.

“More than ever, money talks,” said Chun Ki-won, a Christian pastor and aid worker in Seoul who says that in the past eight years he has helped 650 people elude Chinese authorities and settle in Seoul.

Religious groups once dominated the defection trade in North Korea, but in recent years defectors themselves, many of them former military and security officers, have begun to take over, several brokers and religious leaders said.

This new breed of broker, based in Seoul, uses personal and institutional contacts to hire North Korean guides and to bribe officials. The guides make clandestine contact with defectors, then escort them to the Chinese border, which in most places is a river that they swim in summer and walk across in winter after it freezes. On the other side, Chinese-speaking guides take over.

“I didn’t know it could happen so fast,” said a 37-year-old North Korean defector who paid $12,000 to a broker in Seoul in 2002 to get her 11-year-old son out. The woman did not want her name published because this month she and her siblings are paying another broker to smuggle out their mother.

“It only took five days for my son to be plucked out and taken across the river into China,” she said, adding that two weeks later he was in South Korea. “I was dumbfounded when I got a call from officials at Seoul airport and my son was here.”

For years, North-to-South defections amounted to just a trickle. Most of those coming out were men in their 30s and 40s who held positions that made fleeing relatively easy, such as diplomatic work abroad or border duty with the military. Generally, they escaped without help.

Just 41 defectors sought asylum in South Korea in 1995, but nearly every year since then the number has risen, the flow enhanced by the networks of brokers and agents that sprang up. More than 2,000 North Koreans settled here last year, according to the government in Seoul.

As the number has increased, the typical sex and age of defectors have also changed. There are more women and more families, according to Chun Sung-ho, an official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.

Those figures do not include the many more North Koreans who are hiding in China without connections to brokers who can bring them on to South Korea. The New York-based human rights group Amnesty International estimates their number at about 100,000, a substantial proportion of whom are women who have been sold into prostitution.

For all the functionaries who are newly willing to take money to look the other way, for all the recent diplomatic optimism that North Korea may be opening up, working on the underground railroad remains extremely risky.

“It is possible to get people out, but you cannot say it is easy,” said Lee Jeong-yeon, a former North Korean military officer who defected in 1999. A lot of guides and brokers get caught, he said, adding: “The policy is for 100 percent execution of those caught helping people to defect. I personally saw several such executions.”

Lee, whose identity was confirmed by the South Korean government, said he worked for three years along the Chinese-North Korean border, where he supervised agents who pretended to be brokers and guides in order to infiltrate and disrupt the smuggling trade.

“The successful brokers are experienced people who have good contacts in the military, and they bribe the guards,” said Lee, who said he has used his contacts to smuggle 34 North Koreans across China and into Southeast Asia. “Guards are rotated often, and new people have to be bribed.”

An Abundance of Risks

The risk is not confined to brokers and agents. Human Rights Watch reported this year that the North Korean government, reacting to the increasing number of defections, has stiffened penalties for citizens it catches trying to flee. Under North Korean law, attempting to leave the country illegally is still classified as treason.

Until 2004, the government imposed relatively light punishment on non-elite citizens attempting to get out, releasing them after questioning or at most sentencing them to a few months in labor camps, Human Rights Watch said.

But since then, North Korea has imposed sentences of up to five years in prison. “Anyone imprisoned in North Korea is liable to face abusive conditions including beatings, forced labor and starvation far worse than among the population at large,” Human Rights Watch said.

In recent months, North Korea has beefed up electronic surveillance along the border, strung more barbed wire and erected barriers. Last year, China also increased border security.

Once in China, defectors still face danger, particularly on the low-budget route. Those trying to reach haven in South Korean diplomatic facilities in China are on their own for the last few yards, scrambling to run past Chinese policemen and climb walls. Not all of them make it.

Chun Ki-won, the Seoul-based pastor who helps defectors, said that the Chinese government has cracked down on North Koreans as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Beijing next summer. “It is getting worse,” said Chun, who runs orphanages in China for children abandoned by defectors. “There are an increased number of arrests.”

China is not supposed to return people to a country where their lives are at risk. But it routinely repatriates North Koreans it has detained, human rights groups say.

When defectors do succeed in reaching South Korea, they are often debilitated by guilt over the kin they left behind. And such guilt is not unjustified, because the North Korean government often sends relatives of defectors to forced labor camps.

That occurs as a matter of policy when defectors are government or military officials with inside information about the workings of Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship.

Defectors from Pyongyang, the capital, can also expect their families to be ordered to labor camps, according to Lee, the former North Korean army officer, who said his relatives were all dead when he defected.

Punishment may also be inflicted on the families of ordinary people who manage to leave. “I just go crazy to think that because of me my parents and my sister may be in a labor camp now,” said a 40-year-old woman who two years ago fled her North Korean coastal town in a fishing boat, along with her husband and teenage son. She and her husband had run a small business trading fish for food and consumer goods.

She has since heard that her mother, father and sister were forced from their homes by the authorities and relocated to a farming area in the interior.

“We have hired brokers to try to find them, but the guide sent to find them has been arrested,” said the woman, who lives in a Seoul suburb and did not want her name published for fear that her family would be further punished.

“You cannot know how heartbreaking it is to leave your family in this way.”

Fees and Incentives

Seoul-based brokers say they often accept payment on an installment plan — with little or no money upfront. Once an installment-plan defector gets to Seoul and has access to some of the $43,700 that South Korea doles out to each new asylum seeker, brokers typically demand far more than their basic fee.

“My boss is willing to put up all the money to pay the bribes to get someone out,” said a Seoul-based broker who was formerly a North Korean military officer. “But when you get to Seoul, you have to pay double for this service.”

This broker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has a child and other relatives back in North Korea, said his company usually charges less than $2,000 for bringing a defector to Seoul via China and Thailand. That automatically jumps to $4,000 for those who cannot offer cash upfront.

To help defectors remain solvent as they adjust to life in the booming capitalist South, the Seoul government now pays out money over time rather than in a lump sum, according to Chun Sung-ho, the Unification Ministry official. It also offers incentives for finding and holding jobs.

About a quarter of the money goes directly for housing, eliminating any chance that it could be paid to a broker.

Guilt and Longing

Even after they pay off brokers for their own passage to Seoul, North Koreans who settle in the South often end up spending many thousands of dollars more to try to bring out loved ones left behind.

Lee Moon-jae, 81, fled North Korea more than five decades ago. He soon remarried in the South and raised two sons. But he continues to wrestle with the guilt and longing he feels for the wife and two sons he abandoned.

Two years ago, he said, he paid $4,800 to a broker to bring him face to face with one of his lost sons, who is now 58. They met for three days and two nights in a hotel on the Chinese side of the border.

At the end, Lee said, his son declined to defect — and returned home to his wife and children. Before his son left, Lee said, he gave him $1,700 in cash, a digital camera and some clothes — but Lee later learned that his son lost it all while swimming across the Tumen River that separates China from North Korea.

So Lee has raised $3,250 for brokers who promised him they will again contact his family. This month, he said, they hired agents who are already out searching. He has asked them to set up another border meeting or, if possible, smuggle out his entire family, including his aging North Korean wife.

They all live in the interior of the country, and Lee says that moving them to the border is complicated and perhaps foolhardy.

He says he is not sure he should be trying to do this, but he is desperate to see them again. Talking about it brings tears to his rheumy eyes.

“I do not have much time before I die,” he said. “What should I do?”

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
11/18/2007

Until recently it would have been just a minor exaggeration to say that Korea is a country without national minorities. The only exception to this rule are the ethnic Chinese who began to move to Korea in the late 19th century. Nowadays, South Korea is home to some 20,000 ethnic Chinese who are considered citizens of Taiwan.

North Korea also has its ethnic Chinese community, whose members, needless to say, hold passports of the People’s Republic of China. The ethnic Chinese of the North are descendants of people who moved there in the 19th century. In the late 1940s, most of them went back, but a few chose to stay, creating a small but unusual community, one of the few minorities in a society which sees its own homogeneity as a source of pride.

From the very beginning of their history, the North Korean huaqiao (as foreign nationals of China are known) found themselves in an unusual and controversial situation. Their presence was not really welcomed: in the 1950s and early 1960s the North Korean authorities went to great length to “cleanse” the land of all non-Korean elements, including citizens of supposedly friendly countries. Hence, the Chinese were strongly encouraged to go back to China.

However, the Chinese themselves were not very enthusiastic about this move: most of them had spent their entire lives in Korea. It was also important that China in the 1960s and 1970s was in an even worse state than North Korea. It had lower living standards, and hardly fared much better in terms of political freedom: Kim Il-sung’s dictatorship might have been bizarre, but it was more predictable and perhaps less brutal than the moody rule of Chairman Mao. People still went to China, to be sure, but they were not in a hurry.

According to a 2001 Chinese publication which cited North Korean sources, in 1958 in the North there were 3,778 Chinese households comprising 14,351 members.[1] In the 1960s numbers dropped on account of the ban on private economic activity, the forced collectivization of agriculture, and the nationalist policies of Pyongyang. These factors conspired to drive the ethnic Chinese away. Thus, by 1980 numbers had fallen to a mere 6,000, of whom half reportedly resided in Pyongyang with most of the balance living near the North Korean border with China.

The situation of the North Korean huaqiao was difficult to describe in one word: they were both discriminated against and privileged. As foreigners, they could not become members of the Korean Workers Party, and this alone made them ineligible for many possible careers (well, no department in the administration or bureaucracy would take them on anyway). However, children of small vendors and vegetable farmers hardly felt too bad when they realized that they would never become district party secretaries or army colonels, their aspirations were milder.

At the same time, the huaqiao were exempt from the many obligations of the average North Korean. For example, they were allowed to have radio sets with free tuning, on the condition that they would not tune in to anything but the official broadcast if some locals were present nearby. They did not attend the boring and time-consuming indoctrination sessions. And one also might surmise that they also enjoyed a much less likelihood of being arrested for some minor improper ties.

Like the ethnic Chinese in South Korea, the North Korean huaqiao have their own schools. According to the same publication, cited by Kim Min-se, in the late 1990s in North Korea there were four Chinese middle schools where students, young citizens of the People’s Republic, studied according to the Chinese curriculum. There were primary schools as well.

However, of all the privileges the most important one was their right to trade. From around 1980, the Korean huaqiao were allowed to go to China or invite their relatives to North Korea. This meant that they were the only group (at least, outside the narrow inner circle of the top families) whose members could go overseas more or less at will. In the 1980s China was beginning its remarkable economic overhaul, and the possibility of using a price differential between two closed markets is the dream of any astute merchant. In few years, most huaqiao made trade their main or only source of income.

They moved back and forth, selling seafood, frog oil, mushrooms and other exotic products, which play an unusually important role in North Korean foreign trade, to China. From China, they brought in garments, cloth, cheap electronics and household items. In the mid-1990s, during the famine, food became a major import item as well. Everything was sold at huge profits, and from around 1990 every huaqiao was seen as a rich person, almost by definition.

However, the numbers of North Korean huaqiao are said to be dwindling nonetheless. The lure of successful China is too great, so they often prefer to leave. They stay in touch with their connections in the North and maintain their business networks, but now they reside in the more comfortable and secure environment of modern China. Their desire to give their children a better education also plays a major role in the repatriation process, another similarity with the shrinking Chinese community in the South.

However, there is another move afoot as well: some Chinese are moving to North Korea to start businesses there, and they might just lay the foundations for a new huaqiao community. But that will be another story, of course.

Korea Times
Yoon Won-sup
11/16/2007

The prime ministers of the two Koreas have agreed to set up Internet, wire and mobile phone services including mobile phones in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea.

They also agreed to allow free movement of people and vehicles of the South in the complex starting next month in order to expand inter-Korean economic cooperation.

The agreement was made between Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong-il Friday.

The rare talks between the prime ministers, the first in 15 years, went smoothly.

The North Korean delegates were very favorable to suggestions made during the three-day talks in Seoul, according to sources.

Particularly, Han and Kim took a stroll together in the morning and toasted each other with soju at dinner, Thursday, boasting of their friendship.

President Roh Moo-hyun hosted a lunch for the delegations, Friday, and thanked them for reaching an agreement. The North Korean delegates returned to Pyonyang by plane afterwards.

The two prime ministers issued a joint statement after the talks, which were aimed to follow up agreements reached at the second inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang from Oct. 2-4.

They agreed to create a committee for a special zone of peace and cooperation in the West Sea coastal area under which five subcommittees will be set up to deal with an economic zone in Haeju, North Korea; the common use of Haeju port and the southern part of the Han River estuary in South Korea; the safe passage of private ships near Haeju; and a common fishing area in the West Sea.

The first committee meeting, chaired by a minister-level official, will be held in Gaeseong next month.

They also agreed to have a premier-level meeting and vice premier-level economic cooperation committee’s meeting every six months, one in Pyongyang in the first half of 2008 and the other in Seoul.

A cross-border freight and cargo railway linking Munsan in the South and Bongdong in the North will start operation from Dec. 11.

Working-level talks will be held in Gaeseong for two days from Tuesday to finalize the agreement on the cross-border train service, according to the statement.

As part of reconciliation measures, South Korea will help North Korea repair the Gaeseong-Sinuiju railway and Gaeseong-Pyongyang highway in 2008.

Han and Kim agreed to start the construction of shipyards in Anbyeon and Nampo next year.

For family members displaced since the 1950-53 Korean War, the two Koreas will allow exchanges of video calls starting next year and complete the construction of a family reunion center at Mount Geumgang next month.

A series of talks will be held next month to discuss the launch of a tourism program to Mount Baekdu, as well as the use of the North’s Pyongyang-Shinuiju railway to transport a joint supporters group from the two Koreas to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

“The agreement is the first step toward enhancing inter-Korean relations through the virtuous circle of peace and economy,” Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said.

Lee said the joint statement contained implementation measures for the summit accords, except the military measures that guarantee the cooperative plans.

Apparently mindful of the importance of these, he added: “The coming inter-Korean defense ministers’ talks will deal with the implementation.” The military talks are slated for Nov. 27-29 in Pyongyang.

Korea Times
Ryu Jin
11/16/2007

The Mt. Geumgang tour business marks its ninth anniversary this Sunday. Hyundai Asan, the South Korean operator of the tour project to the resort mountain across the border in North Korea, says that it sees a more prosperous business for its 10th year.

Hyundai Asan is set to hold a ceremony to celebrate the anniversary, which comes after encouraging news such as the agreement with the North to open the 1,638-meter Biro-bong, the highest peak of the auspicious mountain, early next year.

According to the firm, a total of 1.72 million people have so far visited the “caged” area of the tightly controlled Stalinist nation over the past nine years since Nov. 18, 1998, when the cruise ship “Geumgang” arrived at the site for the first time.

A land route was opened through the heavily militarized border in 2003, terminating the cost-heavy sea travel from 2004 onwards. And North Korea opened more and more sites including “Naegeumgang” (the inner, western part of the mountain).

A company spokesman expects that the number of Mt. Geumgang travelers this year, which has already exceeded 300,000 as of October, to reach above 350,000 by the end of the year, a new record.

Hyundai Asan’s successful business, despite some political uncertainties in recent years, is largely due to its endeavors to diversify tours in the limited area of the 530-square kilometer mountain.

The Naegaumgang Tour, launched last June, added more prospects for South Korean climbers who until then could only enjoy “Oegeumgang” (the outer part of the mountain) and “Haegeumgang” (the seashore).

Beside, cultural events such as concerts as well as visits to hot springs and restaurants with unique Northern cuisine, an 18-hole golf course and a duty-free shop that opened in the resort area recently, will provide visitors with additional pleasures.

However, some experts point out that there remains much to be done in order for the Mt. Geumgang tourism business, which still remains largely a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, to be reborn as a more lucrative business.

The complicated processes of immigration control in addition to the long journey of 4-5 hours to the eastern coastal area are among major problems that should be addressed, along with the insufficient infrastructure such as hotel accommodation.

“We plan to expand facilities in the tourism zone further, as more visitors will come to the mountain when Biro-bong is opened next year,” the company spokesman said. “In particular, we will also pay attention to more safety measures.”

Daily NK
Lee Sung Jin
11/16/2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Institute for Far Eastern Studies
NK Brief No. 07-11-15-1
11/15/2007

Recently, North Korean authorities have adopted a measure prohibiting women under the age of forty from selling goods in Pyongyang markets. According to DPRK media sources, as internet videos of footage shot in Pyongyang markets by hidden cameras have emerged, and have been viewed with great interest by many in South Korea, authorities have increased restrictions on the markets. Just since last month, three videos shot in Pyongyang’s Sungyo Market have been shown on Japanese news programs.

While currently, North Korean authorities are carrying out a campaign preventing trading in markets by women under the age of forty, the age requirement for trading will be raised to forty five in North Hamkyung Province beginning this December. Women’s groups are said to be fiercely opposing the move. Pyongyang City’s People’s Committee recently passed down an order for women under the age of forty to return to work in offices, however businesses were in no position to take on new employees due to the small scale of work available and current overstaffing, and were unable to provide wages or rations, leading to the failure of the new policy. The authorities’ current restriction on market trading, aimed at pushing these women back to government-assigned work, will likely not last. Because almost all North Koreans, including the authorities, rely on the markets to sustain their lifestyles, market restrictions cannot be anything but temporary.

According to a domestic publication by the DPRK Workers’ Party obtained through diplomatic channels, North Korean authorities are calling for “a crackdown on markets that have degraded into hotbeds of anti-socialism.” An article published last October in the name of the Workers’ Party Central Committee reported that the Kim Jong Ill had stated, “the current state of anti-socialism should not be moderately opposed. A strong and concentrated attack must be laid out in order to thoroughly eliminate [this anti-socialist behavior].”

This report continued, “Citizens can ease their lives by using the markets, but currently [markets] have degenerated into areas that cause disorder to national discipline and social conditions,” and, “in any city tens of thousand of traders are out on the roads, disturbing pedestrian and vehicle traffic.” The article went on to criticize, “and an even more serious problem is that most women of hirable age are trading in the markets,” and, “women who received a high-school education through the benevolence of the State and Party and dismiss their responsibilities by falling into trade work are throwing away fundamental conscientiousness and even faithfulness.” This article amounts to the Party’s recognition of reliance on markets by everyone, including government officials, and the rampant anti-socialism in the air around these areas.

Joong Ang Daily
Brian Lee
11/16/2007

A North Korean defector has been charged and detained for trying to smuggle North Korean-made Philopon, an illegal stimulant, into the country, the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.

Identified only by his last name, Park, the 38 year-old tried to receive the drugs in a package mailed from China that was intercepted at Incheon International Airport, prosecutors said in a release.

Customs officials who monitor the incoming packages discovered 47 grams of the drug.

The package was addressed to Park; investigators arrested him on Wednesday. The package bore a Chinese address for the sender but Park told investigators that the drugs were manufactured in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province in North Korea and delivered through another North Korean he had contacted in China.

Park defected to South Korea in January 2002 and established a small trading company doing business with Japan, China and Russia.

He told investigators that a member of a Japanese criminal group had asked to become a supplier of the drugs. The package was supposed to be a sample. Park also said he had already wired 3 million won ($3,200) to a bank in China for the other North Korean.