Archive for April, 2015

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China rejects DPRK coal shipment (Again)

Saturday, April 4th, 2015

UPDATE 1 (2015-4-4): For the second time this year, the Chinese have rejected a shipment of North Korean coal. According to the Korea Herald (Yonhap):

China has returned a shipment of anthracite coal to North Korea because it failed to meet standards for mercury emissions, according to a local report on Saturday.

This appears to be the second rejection by China of the North Korean mineral this year.

The shipment arrived at the Longkou port of China’s northern coastal province of Shandong late last month, but was returned as its quality did not satisfy China’s environmental regulations, iQiru.com, a local Shandong Internet news site, reported, citing an unnamed Longkou port official.

The report did not elaborate further or include the volume of the rejected North Korean coal.

…

In September last year, China announced strict regulations against the sale and import of coal with high toxic pollutants, including mercury and sulfur, to improve the country’s air and water quality.

Anthracite coal accounted for 39.8 percent of North Korea’s total exports to China last year.

China’s imports of North Korean coal plunged 53.2 percent from a year earlier to 16.78 million tons in January this year, according to Chinese customs data.

ORIGINAL POST (2015-3-9): Back in October of 2014, Kevin Stahler was the first person to point out (as far as I am aware) that the DPRK’s coal exports to China were in decline. Quoting Kevin:

However, this year North Korea’s anthracite exports to China are on course for a hard landing. The total value of imported anthracite is down 23 percent in the first half of 2014 compared to a year earlier. That’s an annualized $340 million hit to North Korea’s balance of payments. But North Korea is not alone: China has seen a double-digit decline in both the value and volume of its total world coal imports from January – August 2014.

On March 4, 2015, Yonhap reported that China returned a shipment of coal to the DPRK for reasons related to domestic environmental protection regulations:

China has rejected imports of some North Korean anthracite coal because the coal failed to meet domestic standards for mercury emissions, a local newspaper reported Wednesday, in what appeared to be China’s first rejection of North Korean minerals over environmental concerns.

The shipment was returned to North Korea on Feb. 27 from the Rizhao port of China’s northern coastal province of Shandong, the National Business Daily newspaper reported, citing an unnamed port official.

The report did not elaborate further, or include the volume of the rejected North Korean coal.

After three decades of rapid industrialization, China regularly sees hazardous air pollution with levels of particulate matter rising to nearly 40 times the limits set by the World Health Organization during the winter months.

In September, China announced strict regulations against the sale and import of coal with high toxic pollutants, including mercury and sulfur, to improve the country’s air and water quality.

Anthracite coal accounted for 39.8 percent of North Korea’s total exports to China last year.

In January, China’s imports of North Korean coal plunged 53.2 percent from a year earlier to 16.78 million tons, according to Chinese customs data.

On March 9, UPI reported on one of the key aspects of China’s new environmental policies and how it will affect the DPRK:

China’s crackdown on coal-related pollution will take a heavy toll on the North Korean economy, South Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo reported Monday.

China’s plan is to drastically reduce coal consumption by 160 million tons in the next five years. The plan, presented at the National People’s Congress in Beijing, aims to reduce the fossil energy use that is contributing to severe pollution in big cities, The Australian reported.

Countries exporting coal to China are all affected, but the plan could create an economic crisis in impoverished North Korea. Coal and iron-ore exports are two of North Korea’s biggest exports to China, its biggest trading partner.

According to the Donga Ilbo, more than 97 percent of North Korean exports are shipped to China*, and coal, iron ore comprise 60 percent of all North Korean exports.

China’s anti-pollution policy is affecting North Korean cargo. A North Korean ship delivering coal to China was turned away at the coastal city of Rizhao on Feb. 27. The Donga Ilbo reported the coal did not satisfy China’s environmental regulations.

The rising ban and other factors are placing the impoverished North Korean economy in a tight squeeze.

Anna Fifield also covered this story for the Washington Post and Guardian.

*The article reports that China accounts for 97% of the DPRK’s international trade. This is only true if one excludes South Korean trade–which South Korea does because they consider North-South trade as “inter-korean” trade.

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Posted in China, Coal, Energy, International trade, Statistics, Trade Statistics | 1 Comment »

Increase in sales volume of domestic goods in North Korean stores

Friday, April 3rd, 2015

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)

North Korea’s official news agency, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on March 25, 2015 that the volume of domestic goods sold at North Korean stores is increasing.

“Every display is filled with all kinds of inexpensive, high-quality domestic goods. Numerous shoppers are purchasing these goods, all of which are produced at domestic light industry factories. This is a sight that is commonly seen today at Choson’s [North Korea’s] department stores,” KCNA reported.

The news agency also quoted the manager of Pyongyang’s Department Store No. 1: “In recent years there have been remarkable improvements in every indicator, from the amount and quality of light industry goods produced domestically to the brands and packaging. As this has occurred, demand for these goods has increased,” he explained.

While he says that stores are mainly selling domestically produced goods like food and cosmetics, he also said, “Because furniture and building materials, shoes and clothing, medicine and other goods are also low-priced and suited to the tastes and health of our people, they are gradually overwhelming imports.”

The manager of Sinuiju Cosmetics Factory commented as well: “Previously, our ‘Pomhyanggi’ (or ‘Spring Scent’) brand was the only product that people could point to as a cosmetics product […] But the popularity of Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory’s ‘Unhasu’ (or ‘Milky Way’) is rising, and when you include the units produced at Myohyang Cosmetics Factory, its units actually surpass ours and are putting up a strong challenge. We had better get ourselves together.”

At light industry factories across the country, production of food products is rapidly increasing, and quality is improving as well. But it has reportedly not been easy to meet the people’s demand. Thus, manufacturers are working to improve product design and manufacturing technology and pledge to actively help improve the lives of the people.

In addition to this, KCNA reported that at places like the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex and the Hamhung Automated Equipment Factory, they are also spurring on production of domestic products through means such as domestically producing raw materials and equipment.

Meanwhile, North Korea is building one modern foodstuff factory after another in Pyongyang. The Rodong Sinmun, mouthpiece of the Workers’ Party of Korea, reported on March 18, 2015 that in the Nakrang district, construction of the ‘corn processing plant’ entered its final stages. There are plans for this factory to produce around 10 different food items out of corn (corn is the most common food ingredient in North Korea), including corn noodles and snacks.

On February 10, 2015, in Pyongyang’s Mangyongdae district, ‘Mangyongdae Kyonghung Foodstuff Factory’ was completed and went into operation. KCNA emphasized that this foodstuff factory is “a modern and comprehensive food manufacturing center” and will supply residents with “tasty and nutritious food.”

Similarly, in June 2014, the Unha Taesong Foodstuff Factory in Pyongyang’s Potonggang district finished construction and began production. North Korea’s official web portal,  ‘Naenara’ explained that the factory produces approximately 100 kinds of food such as bread, snacks, candy, beer, ham and sundae (or Korean sausage).

The fact that in a relatively short period of time modern foodstuff factories are continually being built in Pyongyang is consistent with the most important task of North Korea in the Kim Jong Un era: improving the food situation of the North Korean people. On February 18, 2015, First Chairman Kim Jong Un spoke at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Workers’ Party. There, he asserted that the improvement of people’s lives was the nation’s first priority, and he specifically emphasized the importance of solving the food issue. Unlike the past, recent efforts extend beyond solving the food shortage problem and aim to raise the quality of food for the people.

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Posted in Food, Light Industry, Manufacturing | Comments Closed

DPRK expels German and American aid workers

Thursday, April 2nd, 2015

UPDATE 1 (2015-4-8): Less than a week since expelling a German aid worker, the DPRK announces it deporting and American. According to the Wall Street Journal:

North Korea said Wednesday it has deported an American aid worker for “plot-breeding and propaganda” against the isolated state.

A report from Pyongyang’s state media named the aid worker as Sandra Suh. It said Ms. Suh has been a frequent visitor to the country since 1998 for humanitarian work but engaged in anti-North Korean “propaganda abroad with photos and videos … she secretly produced and directed.”

The Korean Central News Agency report said Ms. Suh has been deported.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said she couldn’t immediately comment on the report. Attempts to locate Ms. Suh weren’t immediately successful.

Foreign aid workers’ access to North Korea is extremely limited and the presence of U.S. citizens is rare. The regime has in the past shown reluctance to let foreign aid agencies work inside the state and has occasionally denied visa renewals when its economic performance made some gains.

The Los Angeles Times follows up (2015-4-8):

Suh is the founder of the Los Angeles-based humanitarian organization Wheat Mission Ministries.

Her daughter-in-law told the Los Angeles Times in a brief phone call that her family was thankful that it appeared Suh would be released, but declined to give details on Suh’s visits to North Korea out of concern about jeopardizing her return.

Eun-sook Suh said Sandra Suh was originally from the Pyongyang area and fled south during the Korean War. She initially returned to North Korea with the hope of finding long-lost family members.

“We’re just thankful that God seems to be helping her return,” she said.

Wheat Mission Ministries did not immediately return a request seeking comment, but its website states it was founded by Sandra Suh in 1989 “in response to the needs of the children and families of North Korea” and was formally established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2005. Suh, however, is not listed as a current staff member.

The Korean Central News Agency did not say when Suh was detained, nor was it clear whether she had already been deported. The agency said Suh had engaged in anti-North Korean “propaganda abroad with photos and videos” that she “secretly produced and directed, out of inveterate repugnancy” toward the secretive nation.

According to the group’s website, Wheat Mission sends medicine, medical equipment, food, building materials, clothes, shoes and blankets to North Korea. The organization is also involved in teaching North Korean healthcare professionals and building schools and orphanages. It says it is inspired “to share the love and humility of Christ.”

North Korea has detained and then released a number of Westerners in recent years who were missionaries or devout Christians, including Korean American missionary Kenneth Bae and Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio man who traveled to North Korea on a tourist visa and intentionally left a Bible in a hotel room.

The country director of a German aid group, Welthungerhilfe, or World Hunger Aid, was recently expelled. The group said Pyongyang had asked the worker, Regina Feindt, to leave the country in February without saying why. Welthungerhilfe has worked in North Korea since 1997, spending tens of millions of dollars on projects to improve food, sanitation and water supply.

Here is coverage in UPI:

North Korea deported a Korean American aid worker and philanthropist on charges of espionage – after receiving $2 million in annual aid from her organization for 25 years.

Pyongyang’s state-controlled media outlet KCNA had blasted Sandra Suh on Wednesday, for partaking in a plot against the North Korean government, and for disseminating “propaganda” about the reclusive state, reported Yonhap.

Suh left North Korea and arrived in Beijing on Thursday, en route to the United States after the announcement.

Choe Jae-yeong, a pastor and an acquaintance of Suh, said Suh was a “doyenne of North Korea aid organizations in the Los Angeles area,” according to Radio Free Asia.

Choe said even in the darkest days of the Great Famine that killed more than two million North Koreans in the 1990s, Suh was at the forefront of providing aid to the needy. At the time, she operated a noodle factory in North Korea’s Hwanghae province and in Pyongyang, and supplied medical aid.

Suh even arranged a trip to North Korea for U.S.-based pastors in order to raise funds and awareness of the need for a hospital for the disabled in North Korea. At one point, she collected used carpets for North Korean orphanages.

The Korean American aid worker had relatives in North Korea and her philanthropic work enabled her to cultivate a friendship with the North Korean authorities.

North Korea’s KCNA claimed Suh had confessed to her crimes and “earnestly begged for pardon.”

The Guardian reported Suh is registered as a founder of Wheat Mission Ministries, established in 1989 to provide food aid and medical technology to North Korea.

ORIGINAL POST (2015-4-2): James Pearson writes in Reuters (also printed in the Guardian):

North Korea has expelled the country director of one of the few foreign aid groups to operate in its territory.

Welthungerhilfe, whose name translates as World Hunger Aid, is one of Germany’s largest non-governmental aid organisations and has been working in North Korea since 1997, spending more than €60m on projects designed to improve food, sanitation and water supply.

It said North Korea had asked its country director Regina Feindt to leave the country in late February, without warning or saying why.

Feindt’s colleague Karl Fall, who had worked in the country for 12 years, left of his own volition the next month.

“Welthungerhilfe does not see anything in Mrs Feindt’s behaviour that would have justified an expulsion,” the aid group said.

It said Feindt left North Korea on 26 February and Fall left on 19 March. Feindt and Fall were not available to comment, Welthungerhilfe said.

The abrupt departures came as a surprise to members of the small foreign community in Pyongyang, according to a regular visitor to the North Korean capital who wished to remain anonymous, citing the sensitive nature of working there.

Welthungerhilfe would not comment on the events leading up to Feindt’s deportation. “We don’t know why this has happened,” said spokeswoman Simone Pott.

The NGO still has a skeleton presence in North Korea. It said its activities to improve water and sewage systems in cities were unaffected.

“At the moment we are in discussions with the North Korean authorities to secure a basis for continuing our development work in the country for the benefit of the people of North Korea,” the group said.

Read the full story here:
North Korea expels country director of German aid group
Guardian
2015-10-2

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Posted in Germany, International Aid, Welthungerhilfe | Comments Closed

How to run a “private” bus company in the DPRK

Wednesday, April 1st, 2015

According to the Daily NK:

More independent transportation companies, run by the donju, or new affluent middle-class, are springing up in North Korea’s main transit hubs and driving up fares.

“There is a growing number of bus and truck companies operating not only in Pyongyang but nationwide,” a source from North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK last Friday. “People are buying buses or trucks and then paying the state a certain fee to open up transportation companies authorized by the central authorities.”

She explained that those members of the donju with significant amounts of money establish contacts with central bodies and win over the right to operate. “The ‘Pyongyang Transit and Trade Company’ and the ‘General Bureau of Transportation,’ which fall under the Cabinet, write up permits for individual donju and are authorizing the operations in exchange for a certain amount of the profits,” she said, adding that each region has bus companies that come from those two Pyongyang-based offices, creating a de facto public-private collaborative operation.

The donju, by importing second-hand buses from China for 3,000 to 4,000 USD, are overtly raking in profits and revolutionizing bus transportation in North Korea; personal bus transportation was only available in two to three cities in the early 2000s, including Pyongyang, but now it has spread nationwide. According to the source, some companies own anywhere from dozens to hundreds of buses.

“The fare between Chongjin and Musan used to be 8,000 KPW [1 USD] until just two years ago, but now it has jumped to 50,000 KPW [6.25 USD]. The bus that runs between Chongjin and Kim Chaek is currently 80,000 KPW [10 USD] – ten times the original price,” she noted. “Donju are raising the fares to whatever they want depending on the oil prices and exchange rate with the Chinese yuan.”

In the North’s main cities, state-run trams, trolleys, and long-distance buses do operate, but the vehicles are old and the companies beset by economic difficulties. The number of donju-run companies, however, is increasing by the day, leaving the state no choice but to accept their money and grant them license to operate.

“People are happy that there are more options for transportation but there are a lot of complaints about the expensive fares,” the source said. “Some say it’s not unusual for such companies to be operating in the way they do considering the dilapidated condition of state companies, but in the end it’s the regular people who bear the brunt of it all.”

Additional posts on the DPRK’s bus networks here.

Read the full story here:
Transportation Options Taking Off
Daily NK
Choi Song Min
2015-04-01

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Posted in Automobiles, Black markets, Economic reform, Transportation | Comments Closed

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