Archive for January, 2009

Russia to complete fuel supplies to DPRK this month

Monday, January 19th, 2009

According to RIA Novosti:

Russia is to supply a total of 200,000 metric tons of fuel to North Korea as part of a denuclearization deal. Moscow hopes that in exchange for heating oil deliveries Pyongyang will complete the phasing out of its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The full article can be found here:
Russia to complete fuel supplies to N.Korea in Jan.
RIA Novosti
1/16/2009

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DPRK won exchange rate continues to climb

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 09-1-15-1
2009-01-15   

The exchange rate for the North Korean won shot up approximately 13-15 percent at the end of last year, and has maintained this high rate into January, according to an article in the on-line newsletter, “Open News for North Korea,” on January 12.

According to the inaugural edition of the newsletter, the exchange rate last year was around 3,200 won per USD, or 460 won per Yuan, with only slight fluctuations, but shot up to 3,630 won per USD and 530 won per Yuan in December. In the first weeks of the new year, it has fallen only slightly, to 3,540 won per USD, and 530 won per Yuan.

According to traders who import and export between North Korea and China, “The sudden rise in the exchange rate appears to be related to trade regulations on goods imported from the North,” and they stressed, “After North Korea protested to China about inferior Chinese goods leading to accidents around the country, China decided to set an example, and unilaterally imposed [trade] restrictions.”

Because business with China makes up almost 50 percent of North Korea’s trade, if DPRK-PRC trade, and in particular, North Korea’s exports to China, are restricted, this would cause a large shock to the foreign currency market,” and, “China’s regulatory measures were eased as January come around,” but, “this year, North Korea is strengthening crackdowns on domestic markets, making it difficult to expect the exchange rate to return” to last year’s lower numbers. According to the article, “There is a foreign currency crisis in North Korea, as well, the scale of which is so great it can’t even be compared to what is happening in the South.”

The black market price for U.S. dollars has shot up from a low of 200 won, in July 2002, to 3,200 won in July of last year, and has continued to rise, peaking at 3.500 won currently. This is a sixteen-fold increase in just over six years. The newsletter put this in perspective by explaining, “North Korea has experienced a foreign currency crisis like that seen in South Korea in 1998 every year since 2002.”

North Korea’s haphazard currency distribution and chronic trade deficit has led to a reduction in the country’s foreign currency reserves, while the failure of the authorities’ currency stabilization policies combined with the growing demand for U.S. dollars by North Korean residents seeking imported goods have led to the sharp growth in the exchange rate.

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DPRK agriculture update

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

On May 12, 2008, The DPRK formally asked the UN World Food Program for emergency food assistance.  In June 2008, the UN WFP/FAO launched the “Rapid Food Security Assessment”.  They confirmed…

…a significant deterioration in food security in most parts of the country.3 Close to three quarters of respondents have reduced their food intake, over half are reportedly eating only two meals per day (down from three) and dietary diversity is extremely poor among two thirds of the surveyed population. Most families have daily consumption consisting of only of maize, vegetables and wild foods, a diet lacking protein, fats and micronutrients.

and

FAO forecasts that the October/November 2008 harvest will be 70-75 percent of an average year’s output due to inadequate fertilizer supplies, meaning the current food shortages will extend into the next agricultural year. The risk that the country will again suffer summer flooding remains, which could lead to further crop destruction and/or require general food distributions of emergency food aid. In such an event, WFP will have contingency stocks available in the country to rapidly respond. (UN Operations Report)

The UN launched a coordinated response lasting from September 2008-November 2009 which targets over 6 million people with 600,000 metric tons of food assistance.

But according to the Daily NK (Jan 13, 2009):

According to North Korean authorities, the total agricultural yield including rice, corn, potatoes and others reached its highest point since the food shortages of the 1990s this year, at 4.7 million tons.

According to the Joongang Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, a Chinese official involved in the agricultural business who had just gotten back from North Korea quoted a North Korean official as saying that they “had presumed the failure of last year’s harvest due to low temperatures in the Spring and Fall, but in fact recorded the highest level in recent years, 4.7 million tons.”

Regarding this, a researcher from the Korea Rural Economic Institute, Kwon Tae Jin said in a telephone conversation with the Daily NK that, “When I visited Pyongyang in December of last year, Ri Il Sok, Director of the Foreign Cooperation Team in the North Korean Ministry of Agriculture said to me that grain output last year was 4.67 million tons, up by 17 percent over a year ago.” (Daily NK)

Andrei Lankov, writing in tomorrow’s Asia Times (Jan 16), confirms the Daily NK story:

These worries seemed well-founded and the journalists who penned them were often among the most knowledgeable on North Korean issues. Furthermore, most of these stories were based on reports produced by reputable international organizations. By early September, North Korean watchers agreed almost unanimously that a great disaster was set to strike North Korea this coming winter.

Now it has become clear, however, that these were false alarms. The predicted famine has not materialized and does not appear likely to do so in the near future. North Korea has had its best harvest in years, and until next summer no North Korean is likely to starve to death – although some may remain severely malnourished.

This is good news. However, the contrast between the reality and recent predictions is remarkably stark. In recent years, we have come to believe that there are at least a few things about secretive North Korea which are known for sure. Yet the recent turnaround of events has again shed light on the severe limits of outside information about the Hermit Kingdom.

Lankov offers a couple of scenarios that could explain how this happened:

For example, why did reputable international organizations make such a serious mistake in estimating the North’s food shortage? It cannot be ruled out that international observers were deliberately misled by their North Korean minders. Perhaps foreign observers were shown the worst fields because the North wanted more food aid then would otherwise be available?

It also seems that some basic assumptions about North Korean agriculture are wrong. Unless the 2008 harvest was the result of incredible luck, it seems to indicate that fertilizer is far less important than previously believed. It is possible that North Korean farmers have devised strategies to deal with fertilizer shortages.

The false alarms of a disastrous famine in North Korea are a sober reminder that when dealing with the world’s most secretive society, predictions should be treated with the greatest caution.

To learn more, read the following documents/stories:
Emergency Operation Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Title: 10757.0 – Emergency Assistance to Population Groups Affected by Floods and Rising Food and Fuel Prices
UN World Food Program

2008 Agricultural Yield of North Korea
Daily NK
Kim So Yeol
1/13/2009

North Korea reaps a rich harvest
Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
1/16/2009

North Korean Economy Watch topic archives:
Food, AgricultureForeign Aid Statistics

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Seoul supporting DPRK IT industry

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

According to Yonhap:

A group of South Korean information technology experts and businessmen will visit North Korea next month on a rare trip to the communist country amid frozen cross-border exchanges, organizers said Thursday.

The 80-member group is scheduled to tour North Korea’s major IT centers and hold a joint software exhibition during its Feb. 7-11 visit, said the non-governmental South-North Cooperation for IT Exchange. They also plan to donate 5,000 IT books and journals to the North.

“IT books we have delivered so far were mostly Korean language books, and the North Koreans requested original texts. So we collected some foreign language texts this time,” said Kim Jin-hyung, a member of the team and professor from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

Through annual visits since 2006, the IT organization has delivered about 30,000 technical books and latest journals. Yoo Wan-ryung, chief of Seoul-based Unikotech Korea which has promoted investment in North Korea, participates in this visit, organizers said.

Read the full article here:
S. Korean IT experts to visit N. Korea
Yonhap
1/15/2008

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CIA publishes 2008 “DPRK who’s who”

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

UPDATE: The South Korean Ministry of Unifications offers a more comprehensive organization chart of North Korea’s various political organs. I should point out that this is a dejure (not defacto) organizational chart.

ORIGINAL POST:
(Hat tip to Mike Madden for the link)

After the ministerial shakeups in the DPRK were discovered last week, the US Central Intelligence Agency updated their list of DPRK VIPs.  It will come as no surprise that Kim Jong il managed to maintain control of his three titles: General Secretary Korean Workers’ Party, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, and Chairman of the National Defence Commission.

The full list can be viewed on the CIA’s web page here

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Renewable Energy

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

NCNK Newsletter Vol. 2, Issue 1
January 13, 2009
Download PDF here

A DPRK “Shangri-la” Powered by Solar Electricity
By Victor Hsu

In 1988 Bongsu Church — the first Protestant Church built in Pyongyang since the end of the Korean War — opened its doors for the first time. The following year the Korean Christians Federation asked if my organization, Church World Service, would provide a generator for the brand new church. A generator would enable parishioners to enjoy air conditioning during the hot summer months when the temperature can reach 85 degrees Fahrenheit and above. I suggested to the church officials that we install solar generators from China. However, lacking experience with solar power, they preferred the more familiar diesel-powered generators. But the seeds of interest in alternative sources of energy were just starting to grow. Soon after this exchange I learned that the DPRK was investigating the possibility of using another form of renewable energy — windmills.

I have been visiting the DPRK for two decades in many different capacities, most recently as the DPRK National Director of World Vision International (WVI). Over this time, I have learned, as have many of my colleagues from the United States and around the world, that knowledge-sharing and knowledge transfer enhance the benefits of humanitarian assistance. There is increasing evidence that the DPRK seeks out and appreciates this form of international cooperation.

Since 2000, various technical cooperation and assistance projects have involved NGOs and professional organizations in Europe and North America, especially in the field of agriculture and medicine.

World Vision International (WVI) has been active in DPRK since 1995, when a serious humanitarian crisis hit the country. In 2006, shortly after becoming DPRK National Director at WVI, I suggested to the DPR-Korean American Private Exchange Society (KAPES) that they designate a province where WVI could concentrate its humanitarian interventions. Subsequently, after discussions with the DPRK Mission to the UN, North Hwanghae Province was designated as a World Vision International humanitarian zone, and we were asked to work in Dochi-ri. An ambassador at the DPRK Mission to the UN, Ambassador Han Song Ryol, told me he could envision the province becoming a DPRK Shangri-la!

Dochi-ri is a small sprawling farming community nestled in hilly terrain in Yongtan County, just about a two hours drive south of Pyongyang. A river runs through this community of 12,000 residents and the farmers enjoy a man-made reservoir. This village traditionally grows corn but has begun soybean cultivation as part of the DPRK agricultural program to replace corn with the more nutritious soybean. Like many “ris,” or villages, in the DPRK, Dochi-ri is served by a clinic and a nurse. Itinerant doctors visit the village for non-routine medical interventions. The clinic, the houses, the small primary school and the kindergarten rely on a sporadic electricity supply.

WVI agreed to provide Dochi-ri with an organic fertilizer plant, the first of its kind in the DPRK, a potable water and sanitation system, a bakery and a soymilk processing facility. We also agreed to upgrade the clinic, replace the roofs of the clinic, kindergarten and primary school, and replace the school furniture. All these projects have been completed over the last 2 years, with the exception of the potable water system, which will be finished by mid-2009. The 12, 000 Dochi-ri residents are happy with all of the various renovations, but they are most excited by one innovation: the experiment with solar generators. After careful research and planning among the DPRK partners at the national and local level with the help of a Chinese company, WVI agreed to provide solar generators to the school (5kWh), the clinic (3kWh) and the home of the village engineer (2kWh). These were purchased in China and installed by Chinese technicians.

Chinese technicians and American engineers – the latter coincidentally in Dochi-ri to drill wells and install the water and sanitation system – trained the local people’s committee managers on the use and maintenance of the generators. Our engineers have visited Dochir-ri several times over the past two years after the generators were installed and were happy to respond to all of the villagers’ technical questions. WVI engineers complimented our North Korean partners on the quality of the maintenance. Whenever the solar generator issue comes up in the conversations, our technicians assure the managers that good maintenance of the batteries will ensure at least the minimum of their five-year life span. Our engineers have no doubt that this will be the case given the track record of the DPRK’s technicians. DPRK technicians are known for the meticulousness and thoroughness of their approach to learning.

The village technician’s home with its constant supply of electricity is now the constant envy of the “ri.” In fact, the villagers are requesting WVI to supply each of their homes similar generator. When I visited Dochi-ri in September 2007 the engineer invited the WVI delegation to his home to show us how he is able to have lighting in his house and enjoy TV and music from his CD player. Though he could not speak a word of English, his smiles and a halting “Thank you!” were enough for us to know how the solar panels are making a real difference in the life of this farming community.

A year after the first generators were installed, Dochi-ri villagers determined that they needed a generator to power the water tower for the school. The decision to “go solar” was easy, based on the positive experiences with the first three generators. A fourth solar generator was installed in 2007, and it now provides water for the school. In the past two years, the cost of solar panels has soared, and China is investing heavily in anufacturing them. We hope to see a similar effort to design more powerful, maintenance-free and efficient batteries to enable us to continue to bring solar power to Dochi-ri and other villages in the DPRK.

The experience of the community has been overwhelmingly positive especially with regard to this low-maintenance but highly efficient technology. Now Dochi-ri has ready access to organic fertilizer for its crops, a water sanitation system, an upgraded school, kindergarten and clinic, and bread and soymilk for the children’s lunches. With electricity in the school and clinic, Dochi-ri is beginning to become the Ambassador’s vision of a DPRK Shangri-la!

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British Methodist Church providing aid to DPRK

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

From the Methodist Church of Great Britain:

This month, The Fund for World Mission will grant £5,000 to help the Church in North Korea run a food production company to help people there.

Steve Pearce, Partnership Coordinator for Asia and the Pacific, said: “Times are particularly hard for all the people of North Korea at the present time. The North Korean population is cut off and isolated from the rest of the world and dependent on the regime for their needs. Food is scarce for many – there are problems in the supply of humanitarian aid.

“Christianity is treated as ‘a bad element’ in this socialist country. Christians have been beaten, arrested, tortured, or killed because of their religious beliefs but local sources estimates the number of underground Christians to be at least 200,000, maybe many more, and many of them are imprisoned for their faith.

The British Methodist Church and the Ecumenical Forum for Peace, Reunification and Development on the Korean Peninsula have been developing common projects with Church representatives from North and South Korea, North America and Europe.

Read the full article here:
Methodist Church lends support to Christians in North Korea
Methodist Church of Great Britian
1/12/2009

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Australia grants aid to DPRK

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

According to the AAP via The Age (Australia):

Australia has granted $3.75 million in humanitarian aid to North Korea.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said the funds comprised $2 million for the World Food Program for emergency food for North Korea, $1 million for Unicef for emergency water and water sanitation supplies and $750,000 for the Red Cross.

Read the full story here:
Australia grants $3.75m aid to N Korea
The Age
1/13/2009

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Pyongyang-Painters.com

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Felix Abt, who runs the Pyongyang-based PyongSu Pharmaceutical Company, has launched a company to market North Korean art. 

From the Pyongyang Painters website:

Pyongyang Painters has the privilege to be one of the very few on-line galleries outside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) permitted to sell art and to represent leading artists as well as new talents from this very special country. But unlike others, it is exclusively specializing on North Korean fine arts and will, over time, introduce you to the largest and most representative collection of artworks. Special attention will be given to female artists as well as promising younger talents. Buying with www.pyongyang-painters.com, you contribute to the development of art and artists in North Korea.

The initiators of this website are Felix Abt and his wife Huong who have been living in Pyongyang for many years and who have had the opportunity to get acquainted not only with the country’s institutions involved in fine arts but also with numerous artists across the country. A close partner in Pyongyang is the Paekho Arts Trading Company which is less famous than the Mansudae Arts Studio. But it is at least as dynamic and it enjoys fast growth thanks to its impressive pool of artistic talents.

We are also pleased to announce that Christine Cibert, an experienced French Art Curator & Cultural Events Coordinator & Free-lance Writer is an advisor and consultant to pyongyang-painters.com and to its clients. Christine has lived and worked in North Korea for several years and gave birth to a son in Pyongyang. Her expertise in North Korean fine arts and paintings is outstanding and we are glad that our clients can resort to her competent advice, in particular when it comes to special requests beyond the paintings shown on this website.

Since there is little exposure to the outside world the North Korean form of art is considered very pure. North Korean artists are loyal to their country and, like any other citizens, adhere to the country’s political philosophy. In the absence of influences by contemporary art trends from the rest of the world the painters have, in a unique manner, developed their own techniques and the use of colors in an original style.

The paintings exhibited include, among other things, a variety of beautiful sceneries of nature and of North Korean daily life. These pieces of artwork will give you a rare insight into the lives and thoughts of the people of this country.

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DPRK opens consulate in Dandong

Monday, January 12th, 2009

According to the Korea Times:

North Korea has opened a consulate branch office in Dandong, a major Chinese city bordering North Korea, displaying its intention to reinforce bilateral trade relations with China, Yonhap News reported quoting a source Sunday.

“The North Korean consulate-general in Shenyang recently established its branch office in Dandong and dispatched personnel there,” said the source.

“The move signals the North’s intention to increase its product procurement from China through brisker border trade and strengthen its consular affairs amid a growing North Korean population in the Chinese border city.”

Dandong, a city in the Chinese province of Liaoning, is situated right across the Yalu River from Sinuiju in the northwestern part of North Korea. Approximately 70 percent of trade between North Korea and China is conducted through the Dandong-Sinuiju route.

According to the source, the North Korean consulate branch office is the first foreign diplomatic mission to open in Dandong, which has a population of about 650,000.

Bilateral trade and cooperation via Dandong are expected to further grow as China and North Korea are to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations in 2009 and launch a joint “Year of Friendship.” Two-way trade is estimated to have topped $2 billion last year.

Read the full article here:
N. Korea Opens Mission in Chinese Border City
Korea Times
1/11/2009

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