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
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.
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, Agriculture, Foreign Aid Statistics
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
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
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
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
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 08-1-9-1
1/9/2009
The Jochongryeon mouthpiece, Chosun Sinbo, reported on January 5 that North Korea is working to boost economic production by establishing “concrete attainment goals” in each sector in a “yearly, phased plan” from last year until 2012 in order to reach the goal of establishing a “Strong and Prosperous Nation” by the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung. The paper reported that the North had not made an official announcement regarding this plan, but that it was currently in the process of implementing a 5-year economic development plan
In the textile industry, North Korea is focusing efforts on upgrading equipment in five weaving factories, including major sites in Pyongyang and Sariwon, with the goal of increasing cloth production 400 percent by 2012. The newspaper also reported that North Korea is aiming to increase coal production over the next few years, with the goal of reaching 1980s-levels of production. Coal production peaked in 1989 at 43 million metric tons, and it is estimated that North Korea has over 20 billion metric tons of coal reserves, but the Bank of (South) Korea estimates that in 2007, the North mined a mere 24.1 million metric tons of coal due to a lack of electricity and spare parts. Many of North Korea’s coal reserves are below the waterline, and require constant electricity in order for pumps to maintain an environment in which mining can take place. Last year, in order to boost coal production, North Korea increased budget allocations for energy, coal and metal industries by nearly 50 percent.
This year’s New Year’s Joint Editorial placed heavy emphasis on the metals industry, and emphasized that efforts last year to modernize equipment and improve technology increased 2008 steel production by 150 percent at the Chollima Steel Complex and the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex. The newspaper stressed that these plans were not merely wishful thinking, but that they were “the basis for meaningful achievements,” pointing out that last year, the North Korean cabinet increased investment into both basic industries and vanguard enterprises 49.8 percent. In 2008, North Korea either refurbished or newly constructed over 140 new production facilities, and, “in particular, actively promoted metal, instrument, science, and light industrial sectors.”
According to the newspaper, North Korea would continue to promote economic development in the new year, as well, citing the current global economic crisis and the need to build an independent economic foundation not reliant on South Korea.
On market regulations: North Korean authorities issued three decrees restricting market activity: 1. Markets may only open once every 10 days 2. Only vegetables, fruits, and meat from private citizens can be sold in the markets. Imported goods and products of state-owned companies are prohibited 3. To reduce the influence and growth of professional merchants, market booths will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis (no fixed locations).
The “good” news is that the authorities are having trouble implementing these rules:
A Pyongyang source said in a phone conversation with Daily NK on the 7th, “Until now, markets in Pyongyang have been opening at 2 PM every day and operating normally. They are only closed once a week, on Mondays as usual.”
However, the sale of imported industrial goods from China such as clothing, shoes, cosmetics, kitchen utensils and bathing products has become more restricted in the market. Subsequently, street markets or sales of such goods through personal networks have become increasingly popular.
The source noted, “Inspection units regulate the markets with one eye closed and the other eye open, so it is not as if selling is impossible. With a bribe of a few packs of cigarettes, it is easy to be passed over by the units. However, the sale of industrial goods has rapidly decreased and, if unlucky, one can have his or her goods taken, so the number of empty street-stands has been increasing.”
So many North Koreans now buy Chinese kitchen utensils in the same way Americans purchase cocaine!
But even in Pyongyang they are having troubles enforcing the new rules:
“Since December, rations in Pyongyang have consisted of 90 percent rice and 10 percent corn and in the Sadong-district and in surrounding areas, rice and corn have been mixed fifty-fifty percent.”
“It has even been difficult in Pyongyang, where rations are provided, to convert to 10-day markets due to opposition from citizens, so restricting sales in the provinces, where there is virtually no state provision, is impossible in reality. It is highly likely that the recent measure will end as an ineffective decree, like the ones to prohibit the jangmadang or the sale of grain”[.]
On North Korea’s information blockade: Radio Free Asia published an informative article on the ability and propensity of North Koreans to monitor foreign broadcasts. The “good” news is that access to unauthorized information continues to grow.
The whole article is worth reading (here), but here is an excerpt:
North Koreans manage to gain limited access to foreign media broadcasts in spite of increasing government crackdowns in the isolated Stalinist state.
“We clamped down on the people watching South Korean television sets, but it wasn’t easy,” a North Korean defector and former policeman who monitored North Koreans’ viewing habits said. He said channels fixed by the North Korean authorities could easily be altered to catch South Korean programming.
“You could watch South Korean television such as KBS and MBC in Haeju, Nampo, Sariwon, even in Wonsan,” he said, referring to regions of Hwanghae province, just north of the border with South Korea.
“They reach also to the port cities near the sea. But you can’t watch them in Pyongyang because it’s blocked by mountains.”
He said the police themselves used to watch South Korean television “all the time” along with their superior officers.
“We would enjoy what we watched, but outside in public, we would praise the superiority of our socialist system. We knew it was rubbish.”
“According to North Korean defectors interviewed who came to South Korea right after living in the North, educated, intelligent people in North Korea do listen to foreign stations despite the inherent danger,” Huh Sun Haeng, director of the Center for Human Rights Information on North Korea, said in a recent interview.
He said he made good money fixing people’s radios, so they could get better reception of foreign broadcasts.
“I made good money readjusting channels on radios, or upgrading them with higher frequency parts for local people who want to listen to broadcasts other than the North’s state-run radios. There were at least a few hundred people that I know of who listened to foreign broadcasts,” he said.
He said no television reception reached the northern part of the country near the Chinese border, so people there watched recorded programs on videotape and video CD (VCD) instead.
Read the full articles here:
Pulling Back from Converting to 10-day Markets
Daily NK
By Jung Kwon Ho
1/9/2009
Growing Audiences for Foreign Programs
Radio Free Asia
Original reporting in Korean by Won Lee
1/8/2009
From the Family Care Foundation:
The U.S. has set a quota of refugees at 80,000 for 2009, 19,000 of them from East Asia, including North Korea, China, Tibet, and Burma. It is to give priority to 100 refugees from the region who want to join their families who are already in the U.S.
How many North Korean refugees will be accepted is not specified, but they are to come under the Priority-1 Group, where each refugee will be screened individually, and Priority-3 Group, where refugees will be given priority in joining their families who are already in the U.S. Some 600 refugees will be let in under Category P-1 and 100 under Category P-3.
Since the U.S. first accepted a North Korean refugee under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, a total of 75 North Korean refugees have settled in the U.S.
