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DPRK’s Minister of Trade releases information on recent foreign economic cooperation at forum in China

Thursday, September 12th, 2013

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2013-9-12

After North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket in December 2012 and third nuclear test in February 2013, China endorsed UN sanctions against North Korea. Consequently, North Korea appears to be increasing its economic cooperation with Mongolia and Russia.

On September 6, the 7th annual Northeast Asia joint high-level forum was held in Changchun (Jilin Province), China. Ku Bon Tae of the DPRK Ministry of Trade is reported to have been present and to have delivered a presentation on North Korea’s recent economic cooperation activities.

Ku stated, “Currently, cooperation between North Korea and Mongolia is making positive progress,” and “the international freight transport coordination issue and Mongolian corporate investments, telecommunications and other cooperation issues at the Rason Special Economic Zone are at the final stages of agreement.”

He added, “We hope more Northeast Asian nations will actively take part in the Rason Special Economic Zone.”

In May, a Mongolian oil companies HB Oil JSC acquired 20 percent stake in North Korea’s state-run Sungri oil refinery. In July, the two countries signed an agreement on information and communication cooperation and exchanges. In addition, Mongolian experts in the field of livestock are said to be involved in North Korea’s Sepho tableland (Gangwon Province) reclamation project, which seeks to create a large stockbreeding complex.

As for economic cooperation with Russia, the Khassan–Rajin railway — part of an international container rail transport line connecting Russia and North Korea and linking Northeast Asia to Europe — has its opening ceremony scheduled for this month after having received extensive reconstruction. Russia also has a long-term lease on Rajin Port’s pier No. 3. Russia has been renovating the pier, and renovations are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

North Korea and Russia plan to develop Khassan–Rajin rail line and Rajin Port in order to transport cargo from Asia to Europe: as containers arrive at Rajin Port, they are moved to the Khassan-Rajin railway and then transferred to the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR), headed for Europe.

Ku further added, “After the projects are completely finished friendly cooperation between Russia and North Korea and international transport pathway will be opened connecting Asia to Europe through the development of economic and trade relations between the two countries.”

In Ku’s speech, the public economic cooperation with regards to China was covered briefly, and exclude the recent progress made. He commented only on the establishment of Joint Management Committees in Rason and Hwanggeumpyeong economic zones and that banks of the two countries are in the process of negotiating the usage of Chinese renminbi as the currency of trade.

Ku emphasized, “As with our past, our Republic hopes to promote independence, peace and friendship between Northeast Asian countries in the future, based on our foreign policy and will make every effort to further develop and expand this friendly cooperative relationship.”

The 9th China–Northeast Asia Expo opening ceremony was also held (in Changchun) on the same day as the forum. Political and business leaders from China, South and North Korea, Russia, Japan, and Mongolia were present at the event.

Posted in Energy, Foreign direct investment, Gasoline, Hwanggumphyong and Wihwado Economic Zones (Sinuiju), International trade, Ministry of Trade, Mongolia, Oil, Railways, Rason Economic and Trade Zone (Rajin-Sonbong), Russia, Transportation | Comments Closed

North Korea’s minister of trade releases information on recent foreign economic cooperation at forum in China

Thursday, September 12th, 2013

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2013-9-12

He added, “We hope more Northeast Asian nations will actively take part in the Rason Special Economic Zone.”

In May, a Mongolian oil company HB Oil JSC acquired 20 percent stake in North Korea’s state-run Sungri oil refinery. In July, the two countries signed an agreement on information and communication cooperation and exchanges. In addition, Mongolian experts in the field of livestock are said to be involved in North Korea’s Sepho tableland (Gangwon Province) reclamation project, which seeks to create a large stockbreeding complex.

Posted in Agriculture, Ministry of Trade, Mongolia, Railways, Rason Economic and Trade Zone (Rajin-Sonbong), Russia | Comments Closed

Foundations of Energy Security for the DPRK: 1990-2009

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

The Nautilus Institute has put together an amazing research paper on the DPRK’s energy sector. I cannot understate the value of the quality/quantity of facts/figures/tables in this research.

You can download the PDF here.

I have also added it to my DPRK Economic statistics Page.

Here is the introduction:

Energy demand and supply in general—and, arguably, demand for and supply of electricity in particular—have played a key role in many high-profile issues involving North Korea, and have played and will play a central role in the resolution of the ongoing confrontation between North Korea and much of the international community over the North’s nuclear weapons program. Energy sector issues will continue to be a key to the resolution of the crisis, as underscored by the formation of a Working Group under the Six-Party Talks that was (and nominally, still is) devoted to the issue of energy and economic assistance to the DPRK.

The purpose of this report is to provide policy-makers and other interested parties with an overview of the demand for and supply of the various forms of energy used in the DPRK in six years during the last two decades:

1990, the year before much of the DPRK’s economic and technical support from the Soviet Union was withdrawn;
1996, thought by some to be one of the most meager years of the difficult economic 1990s in the DPRK; and 2000, a year that has been perceived by some observers as a period of modest economic “recovery” in the DPRK, as well as a marker of the period before the start, in late 2002, of a period of renewed political conflict between the DPRK, the United States, and it neighbors in Northeast Asia over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons development program; and
2005, also a year in which observers have again noted an upward trend in some aspects of the DPRK economy, as well as the most recent year for which any published estimates on the DPRK’s energy sector and economy are available.
2008, the last year in which the DPRK received heavy fuel oil from its negotiating partners in the Six-Party talks; and
2009, the most recent year for which we have analyzed the DPRK’s energy sector.

Posted in China, Coal, Dams/hydro, Electricity, Energy, Gasoline, Natural Gas, Oil, Russia, Russian Pipeline, Solar, Wind | Comments Closed

Russia delivers more food aid

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

According to Relief Web:

On 9 October 2012, H.E. Alexander A. Timonin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to DPRK, visited Pyongyang Biscuit Factory to formally hand over a generous donation of Russian wheat flour to WFP’s work in the country.

The donation of 6,000 metric tons of wheat flour is valued at US$5 million. Wheat flour is an essential ingredient in the production of nutritious biscuits that are distributed to well over a million children in nurseries, kindergartens and primary schools, as part of WFP’s project to address chronic undernutrition in DPRK.

Wheat flour is also used in DPR Korea to produce Supercereal – a specialised nutritious blended food – for pregnant and nursing mothers.

During the ceremony, Ambassador Timonin confirmed Russia’s engagement in assisting the most vulnerable in DPRK through its contribution to the work of WFP.

“We are very interested in the activities of WFP in DPRK and are very satisfied with its production of fortified food for children and mothers with the wheat flour donated by Russia,” he said. “The Russian Federation will continue to provide humanitarian contributions to WFP, supporting it`s activities in DPRK.”

Previous posts about aid to the DPRK in 2012 can be found here.

Previous posts about Russia can be found here.

Posted in 2012 food shortage, Food, International Aid, Russia, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Noland DPRK trade statistics compendium (2012)

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

This fall Marcus Noland has posted three blog entries which feature DPRK trade statistics with China, the European Union, and Russia. I have put the graphs from these posts here as both an archive and as a quick reference for myself. See Dr. Noland’s original posts (linked above) for his analysis.

Chinese Luxury Goods Exports to the DPRK (Published 2012-9-17):

European luxury exports to North Korea (Published 2012-10-18):

Russian luxury good exports to North Korea (Published 2012-11-14):

Posted in China, EU, Russia, Statistics, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Russia-Korea gas pipeline compendium

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

UPDATE 43 (2015-6-17): Gazprom official claims pipeline not feasible. According to NK News:

The deputy CEO of Russia’s Gazprom told reporters that connecting South Korea to Russian gas supplies is economically attractive but politically infeasible on Tuesday.

The long-gestating pipeline project would extend through the DPRK and provide natural gas to energy-hungry South Korea.

But Alexander Medvedev, speaking from a press conference in Moscow yesterday, said the project was too difficult in the current climate.

“The level of communications, the level of cooperation is not that which would make it possible to speak of advancing to the feasibility study stage, let alone implementing a project to supply gas via North Korea.”

Despite the political hurdles, the project is still interesting from an economic standpoint.

“From the economic standpoint, this would probably be the most efficient option for supplying gas to Korea … There is demand for pipeline gas,” Medvedev added.

…

Despite the numerous roadblocks, the deputy CEO of the world’s largest gas producer remained hopeful that political changes could move the project forward.

“The opportunity remains all the same, but it depends on a resolution of the political issues between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea. There are certain positive signals, but there are negative signals too,” Medvedev said at the press conference.

Post 42 (2014-6-18): According to Leonid Petrov, “Russian GAZPROM postpones Trans-Korean gas pipeline construction project ‘due to unstable political situation in South Korea'”. Here is the source (in Russian).

Post 41 (2014-3-29): According to Yonhap, the Russians and the North Koreans held talks on a number of issues including the Kaesong Industrial Complex, Iron Silk Road, and the gas pipeline. No information on the pipeline was made public.

Post 40 (2013-11-13): The Russians and South Koreans most recently discussed the Russia – South Korea gas pipeline at a presidential meeting in Seoul. No decisions were made. Read more here.

Post 39 (2012-10-4): The Choson Ilbo reports that the pipeline talks are delayed because DPRK is asking for transit rates above the international norm:

A South Korean government source said talks have dragged on because the North is demanding a transit fee that is two to three times more than international rates.

Based on a method of calculation used by Ukraine — about $2 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas for 1 km of pipeline — a reasonable fee would be about US$150 million a year given the estimated amount of gas South Korea would import from Russia and the 700-800 km of the gas pipeline running through the North. But the North reportedly demanded $300-500 million a year.

“It’s likely that the North asked for such a high price in the first place to gain the upper hand in future talks,” the source added. “There have been no full-fledged talks yet. At the moment, Pyongyang, Seoul and Moscow are just trying to read each other’s minds.”

Post 38 (2012-2-27): The Daily NK reports on details being discussed in the pipeline talks:

The Republic of Korea Ambassador to Russia, former chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung Lac, says there has been progress on a gas pipeline connecting Russia, North Korea and South Korea.

“At the moment it is at the stage of enterprises discussing commercial conditions, and I am aware that there has been progress. North Korea and Russia are also discussing issues of transit and transit fees via working-level consultations,” he explained to reporters on a visit to Seoul today.

Wi would not be drawn on what kind of progress has been achieved, saying, “It’s about commercial details and so is hard to explain, but it appears there has been progress on supply quantities and supply conditions.”

Post 37 (2012-2-20): Gazprom reports “progress” in talks with North Korean government. According to Bloomberg:

OAO Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas exporter, said it made progress in talks to supply Korea Gas Corp. (036460) through a pipeline across North Korea, the Moscow-based company said today in an e-mailed statement.

Gazprom and Kogas, as the Korean company is called, plan to meet again in Moscow next month to continue talks, Gazprom said.

(more…)

Posted in China, Economic reform, Energy, Foreign direct investment, Natural Gas, Russia, Russian Pipeline | Comments Closed

DPRK – Russia trade grows

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

According to Yonhap:

Bilateral trade between North Korea and its ally Russia surged nearly 50 percent from a year earlier in the first half, a report said Saturday.

According to the report from Seoul’s state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the amount of bilateral trade between the two countries in the January-June period came to US$38.8 million, up 49 percent from the same period last year.

The report, however, noted such a large on-year increase was due to a large drop posted in the first half of 2011.

“The volume of bilateral trade between North Korea and Russia is still insignificant by any standard,” it said.

The increase was also caused by a 68.3 percent rise in shipments of Russian goods to North Korea with fuel and steel products accounting for 29.9 percent and 28.7 percent of total shipments, respectively.

North Korea’s exports to Russia dropped 10.9 percent on-year to $5.4 million, according to the KOTRA report.

Here are some previous posts on this topic:
1. Lankov on DPRK-Russia trade (2012-9-18).
2. Russia reported to forgive DPRK debt (again)
3. KOTRA numbers from June
4. Lankov on DPRK-Russia ties (2011-9-25)

Read the full story here:
Trade between N. Korea, Russia surges 50 pct in H1
Yonhap
2012-9-22

Posted in International trade, Russia, Statistics, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Russia – DPRK trade

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Following (or perhaps concurrently with) the story on the Russia – DPRK debt forgiveness deal, Andrei Lankov writes about DPRK trade and investment in the Asia Times:

But a brief look at trade statistics makes one suspicious about claims in regard to Russia’s prominence in North Korean issues. It is not widely understood that summits and official rhetoric notwithstanding, actual trade between North Korea and Russia is miniscule, even by the meager standards of North Korea.

In 2011, trade volume between the two countries was merely US$0.12 billion. As inter-state trade goes, this practically means that Russia and North Korea have close to no trade. In the same year, Sino-Korean trade hit the $5.6 billion mark. If you compare this with other East Asian countries this is still peanuts, but it is nonetheless almost fifty times the level of Russo-North Korean trade.

One also might notice that the improvement in political relations between Russia and North Korea had absolutely no impact on Russo-North Korean bilateral trade volumes. If anything, the trade declined when the politicians were smiling and exchanging niceties.

Over the past 15 years, Russo-North Korean trade on an annual basis has fluctuated around the $100-$250 million mark (in a clear downward trend). Throughout the same period, Sino-North Korean trade has increased almost 10-fold.

It is strange that these obvious facts do not attract enough attention among those who like to talk about Russia’s supposed leverage in Pyongyang. These figures are easily obtainable and yet almost entirely overlooked. This seems to be because the figures do not easily fit into preconceived notions about Russo-North Korean relations; the inconvenient truth is that the political rhetoric shared between the two countries is often very shallow and lacking in an economic basis.

To be blunt, Russian businesses have no interest in North Korea.

North Korea is a very poor place that has few comparative advantages in the world market. Nonetheless such advantages do exist. First, North Korea has some mineral resources (iron ore,coal, copper, lead and so forth) which are largely to be found in the northern most part of the country. Second, it has a rather skilled and unbelievably cheap workforce. North Korean workers consider themselves lucky if they are paid $25 a month. But none of these two advantages are of any significance to corporate Russia.

Russian mining companies have all of Siberia at their disposal, and North Korea’s mineral deposits do not look all that impressive by comparison. Things are made even worse by the constant threat of political instability and the gross underdevelopment of transportation and infrastructure in general. Therefore, no major Russian mining firm is willing to invest in North Korea (some have been courted by Pyongyang, have always responded in the negative).

The pull of cheap labor is also not all that attractive to Russian companies. The Russian developmental model does not involve heavy reliance on light industry in general, nor in particular the manufacture of T-shirts and running shoes. There is a moderate need for cheap North Korean labor in Russia itself, and so for many decades North Korean workers have been employed in Russia. But the scale of these operations is quite limited, and likely to remain so (10-20,000 workers at most).

One can of course point at two much discussed projects of economic cooperation between Russia and North Korea – the proposed trans-Korean railway and proposed natural gas pipeline. The pipeline project was discussed during Kim Jong-il’s last trip to Russia in 2011, and as a result still attracts much attention. However, we should remember that the very similar trans-Korean railway was first officially approved in the late 1990s, but still remains on the drawing board and as elusive as ever. There is good reason to believe that a similar fate awaits the pipeline project: for years there will be talks, enthusiastic newspaper articles, even official visits, but not much in terms of actual construction.

Both railway and pipeline projects share one common feature: North Korea is treated as a space to traverse. Had this area been covered with tropical rainforest, or desert, it would have little impact on either of these projects, whose main task is to facilitate interactions between Russia and South Korea.

From a purely commercial view, a short-cut through North Korea makes perfect sense, but there are many political problems which ensure that we will have to wait for many years before any of these projects will begin in earnest.

The major problem is recurrent and perhaps incurable instability which blights the Korean peninsula. Once Russian companies start real construction, they will become hostages of the complex and often unpredictable clashes of power interests in and around the Korean peninsula.

Additional Information
1. Read more about the Rason railway project here.

2. Read more about the pipeline project here.

3. more economic statistics can be found on my DPRK Economic Statistics page

Read the full story here:
North Korea lacks rich relation in Russia
Andrei Lankov
Asia Times
2012-9-18

Posted in Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, Russia, Statistics, Trade Statistics | 1 Comment »

DPRK loggers in Russia: Economic data

Monday, June 25th, 2012

According to the Asahi Shimbun:

More than 100 North Korean defectors are now in Russia, with about 30 in Moscow, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Each day, the former logger felled larch and other trees and transported them to stations from 8 a.m. to around 10 p.m. at the No. 13 office in Tygda in the Amur Oblast.

About 700 North Koreans worked as loggers at the office, with three to four dying in accidents every year.

Loggers made about $500 (40,000 yen) a month on average and $2,000 to $3,000 in a season, according to accounts of other former workers. But more than 70 percent of their pay was siphoned off by the government.

The man remembers he received a maximum of $160 a month in certificates, but supervisors said half of the payment had been sent to his family in North Korea. He was never told how much he made.

North Korean workers dispatched around the world send home several hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The workers, along with mineral resources, are a key source of hard foreign currency for the country, which suffered a trade deficit of $630 million last year.

North Korea’s Forestry Ministry operated its Russian representative office on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, with branches in Tygda and Chegdomyn in the Khabarovsk district, its two largest logging bases.

During the peak, up to 20,000 North Koreans worked as loggers in Russia, with half of them based in Tygda and Chegdomyn, according to sources.

The defector said he volunteered to go to Russia in September 1995 “to make a living.” At that time, rations were suspended in a food crisis, and people were starving to death in rural areas.

At the No. 13 office in Tygda, eight loggers formed a group. Two workers were each responsible for cutting, selecting, transporting and loading trees onto cargo trains. With equipment in short supply, the monthly quota of 3,000 cubic meters was seldom met.

North Korea focused on logging in Russia’s Far Eastern region after it concluded a contract with the former Soviet Union in 1967. Under the agreement, North Korea would take about 35 percent of the trees felled.

North Korean workers are dispatched abroad only for three years. But the man managed to extend his stay, paying bribes to representatives at the No. 13 office, including those from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the State Security Department, or the secret police.

The man won the trust of senior officials and started working outside the logging base on a part-time basis in around 2000. He would earn 2,000 rubles (4,800 yen, or $60) if he worked at a road construction site for one week.

…

North Korea has closed many logging bases in Russia. Tygda and Chegdomyn have only several hundred workers between them, according to sources.

But there are still 15,000 to 20,000 North Korean workers in Russia, according to South Korean human rights groups and other sources.

A little less than 5,000 work in Vladivostok, and plans are under way to have several thousand North Koreans engage in farming or construction in the Amur Oblast.

North Korea has also sent workers to other parts of the world. About 19,000 entered China on a work visa between January and March, a 40-percent increase from the same period the previous year.

Kim Tae San, a former employee of North Korea’s Light Industry Ministry, was responsible for running a joint venture shoe sewing factory in the Czech Republic for three years from 2000.

The 60-year-old said workers could save only less than 10 percent of what they made because the remainder was confiscated by the government.

Female workers at the plant each made $150 a month, but $75 to $80 was unconditionally remitted to North Korea. In addition, the factory collected $40 for lodging expenses, $1 for subscriptions for airlifted Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling party, and $2 for flowers. On a memorial day, a basket of flowers was presented before the Kim Il Sung statue in Pyongyang on behalf of all workers overseas.

Read previous posts on loggers in Russia here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The full story story is well worth reading here:
FAR EAST FOCUS: Pyongyang exploits N. Korean loggers in Russia
Asahi Shimbun
Yoshihiro Makino
2012-6-25

Posted in Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, International trade, Labor conditions/wages, Russia | Comments Closed

Song Hye-rim

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

Pictured above: Yonhap photo of Song Hye-rim’s tomb stone in Moscow

Michael Rank writes in the Asia Times:

She died a lonely death, and she lies in a lonely grave. Once close to the center of power in highly secretive North Korea, she died in a Moscow hospital, spurned by her former lover, the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, after suffering from paranoia and depression.

Much remains mysterious about Song Hye-rim, but a journalist from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency recently discovered her grave in Moscow’s Troyekurovskoye cemetery, where she was buried under an assumed name after fleeing Pyongyang following the breakdown of her relationship with Kim Jong-il.

She was suffering from mental illness and fled for medical treatment to Moscow, where she was admitted to hospital as O Sun Hui, the name under which she was originally buried.

But her gravestone now bears her real name, as well as her dates of birth and death – January 24, 1937-May 18, 2002 – and, on the other side of the headstone are inscribed the words “mother of Kim Jong Nam”.

It’s not known if her son has ever visited his mother’s grave, but Kim Jong-nam is certainly the black sheep of the family. The oldest son of Kim Jong-il was born in 1971 and was at one time his heir apparent, but he was disgraced when he was barred from Narita airport in 2001 when he was found to be travelling on a false passport on a trip to Tokyo Disneyland.

He now lives in Macau and southern China, and was recently quoted by a Japanese journalist as saying he expects the North Korean regime to fail because its new leader, his half-brother Kim Jong-eun, is too inexperienced. He said he had never even met his all-powerful half-brother, who is aged about 28.

The South Korean-born Song Hye-rim was an actress and a divorcee with a child when she became Kim Jong-il’s first mistress around 1970. She is said to have entered Pyongyang Film Academy in 1955, but left the following year to give birth to a daughter. She later re-enrolled and graduated, making her film debut in 1960.

Somewhat spookily, she is buried just 10 meters away from Stalin’s son Vasily Dzhugashvili, who died aged 40 in 1962.

When the Yonhap reporter visited Song’s grave in 2009 it was decorated with a single carnation, left by – who knows. “As you can see the grave has few visitors,” a cemetery official remarked.

Song was the first mistress of Kim Jong-il, who died last December, and was five years older than him. Her friend, Kim Young-soon, has said that Kim Jong-il did not tell his father, the Great Leader Kim Il-sung, that he was living with a formerly married woman as that would have caused a huge scandal.

Song’s sister, Song Hye-rang, managed to defect in Geneva in 1996, bringing with her nothing but her medicines, a volume of Chekhov short stories and her diary. She has told how the Dear Leader, an ardent film buff, was at first besotted with his movie star mistress but his ardour later cooled, and his father ordered him to marry a woman he never really loved, although the marriage did not last long.

His next liaison was with Ko Yong-hui, a Japanese-born ethnic Korean and a dancer, who was the mother of North Korea’s youthful new leader, Kim Jong-eun. She is believed to have died in Paris in 2004 and the Dear Leader replaced her with his personal secretary, Kim Ok, who reportedly accompanied him on a visit to China in 2006.

The ruling Kim family is enshrouded in mystery and rumor, and what little we know for reasonably sure is based largely on defectors’ accounts such as Song Hye-rang’s autobiography and an unpublished memoir by Kim Jong-il’s stepdaughter, the niece of Song Hye-rim, who defected in 1992 after visiting her aunt in hospital in Moscow.

The stepdaughter, Ri (Li) Nam-ok, tells in her autobiography how the then crown prince Kim Jong-nam was sent to school in Switzerland, accompanied by his uncle, Jang Song-taek.

The young Kim was at first reluctant to go, but “Jang Song-taek cajoled him, ‘Come on, come with me, we will see lots of strange and funny things. Let’s go!’ The thought of spending time with his uncle must have pleased him, and Jong-Nam consented.”

So writes Ri in her memoir, according to the respected North Korea-watcher Selig S Harrison, who says that although she originally intended it to be published, she changed her mind and had publication blocked through legal action in the French courts.

Jang stayed with Kim Jong-nam in Switzerland for six months, returning to Pyongyang in August, 1981, says Harrison.

Jang has emerged as a crucial figure since the death of Kim Jong-il because he is reported to be the mentor of the new leader, Kim Jong-eun.

Jang’s stay in Switzerland was fairly short and it occurred a long time ago, Harrison notes, but he believes that it fits in with other indications that he is reform-minded.

So does Ri Nam-ok’s reference to a visit to China by Jang on behalf of Kim Jong-il in 1989. When the subject of a visit by Ri to China came up, “My father told us he had sent Uncle Jang there and he had reported back that it ‘should be seen’,” she is quoted as saying in her ghost-written memoir, The Golden Cage.

Harrison has further evidence for claiming that Jang is a reformer, citing comments by the late Hwang Chang-yop, former international secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, and the most senior North Korean official ever to defect.

Harrison met Hwang three times in Pyongyang, and twice more after he defected to South Korea in 1998.

“Jang Song-taek is the smartest one there [in Pyongyang], and he understands that change is urgent and imperative,” Hwang told Harrison. “He has good relations with the army because three of his brothers are generals. He’s the best hope for reform, but it won’t be easy for him.”

That is an understatement, but perhaps there is hope that North Korea will launch much-needed reforms to its sclerotic political and economic system under its mysterious new leader.

Read the full story here:
North Korean secrets lie six feet under
Asia Times
Michael Rank
2012-2-18

Posted in Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong-il's death, Political economy, Russia | Comments Closed

North Korean Economy Watch