North Korean Economy Watch

According to Yonhap:

North Korea’s sole home-grown automaker seeks to expand its annual production capacity to 10,000 units by 2012, a level not reached since its peak in the 1970s, a pro-Pyongyang paper said Tuesday.

The Sungri Motor Complex, which started production in 1958, has gone downhill as the country suffered economic downturns and severe famine in the decades following the 1970s.

The Choson Sinbo, a Tokyo-based newspaper that relays Pyongyang’s position to the outside world, said the automaker is aspiring to return to its record production capacity by 2012, the target year for the country to become a “strong, prosperous and powerful nation.”

“As production decreased from the 70s, the workforce of the motor company fell to 75 percent of the peak years,” the paper said.

“During economic hardships in the late 90s, the company was close to not breathing. But now, anyone active in production is talking about the ‘promised revival,'” it said.

The paper noted North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s trip in March to the complex, located at the foot of Mt. Sungni in South Phyongan Province, during which he stressed that the “modernization and scientification of the complex” is the most important factor in increasing output.

Kim then “guaranteed” state support to introduce computer numerical control machines to the complex, it said.

The automaker started producing hundreds of trucks named “Sungri 58-type,” “Sungri 61-type” or “Jaju (independence) 64-type” in late April, but output is “still in their early stage,” the paper said.

North Korea seeks to build a “strong, prosperous and powerful nation” by 2012, the centenary of the birth year of Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder and father of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-il, who will turn 70 that year.

Read the full story here:
N. Korean automaker aims to return to peak production by 2012
Yonhap
Kim Hyun
7/14/2009

Other links:
1. Background on Sungri Motors here.

2. I believe this is the location of the Sungri Motor Plant.  If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please let me know.

3. Read about another DPRK auto manufacturing plant here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 11:01 am and is filed under 2012 Strong and Prosperous Nation (Kangsong Taeguk), Automobiles, Manufacturing, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.