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Middlesbrough vs. DPRK Ladies

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Pictured above: April 25th Sports Club field in Sadong-guyok (사동구역) where the matches were held (Google Maps)

UPDATE 4 (2011-4-25): To mark the ten-year anniversary of DPRK-UK diplomatic relations in September 2010, the British Embassy in Pyongyang and Koryo Tours arranged for the Middlesbrough Ladies Football Club to travel to the DPRK for two friendly matches against the DPRK’s national ladies team.  In addition to the two matches, the ladies team spent an afternoon training children at a local school, and an edited version of the film Bend it like Beckham was shown on North Korean television.  If you can access Facebook, you can see pictures of the visit here and  some videos here.

I managed to get video of one of the matches that was aired on North Korean television, so I edited it and posted it to YouTube:

It is in severn parts.  Part 1 of 7 is here.  The resolution is not great, but I am not a professional video editor!

Koryo Tours now has the ambitious goal of bringing a DPRK women’s football team to Middlesbrough.  According to a recent Koryo Tours newsletter:

We are therefore looking to take a North Korean women’s football team to the UK in 2012.  We also plan to bring a female DPRK film crew to accompany the squad and make a documentary of their time in the UK for both North Korean and international screening.

We do have support from both the British Embassy in Pyongyang and various international institutions but we also need financial support.  It would be extremely useful to have introductions to companies or individuals who you think might be interested in helping us.

Contact Koryo Tours for more information.

UPDATE 3: Sky News has a good summary of the events and a video.

UPDATE 2: According to the BBC, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their second game.

UPDATE 1: According to the AFP, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their first game.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Guardian:

North Korea, the most secretive country on earth, the nation George Bush located on the Axis of Evil, where the flame of Marxism-Leninism still burns strong, will this week welcome its first British football team: 14 Teesside women players aged from 17 to 23, and their manager, Marrie Wieczorek.

On Thursday, Middlesbrough FC Ladies set off on a football tour with less bar-hopping (it’s illegal to leave your hotel without your guide) and probably more talk about dialectical materialism than usual. “I think it is going to be a bit of a culture shock,” says Wieczorek. “The whole place is shrouded in secrecy.”

At a time of mounting speculation that Kim Jong-il may be stepping down and appointing his son as successor, the team will fly to Beijing and then board an Air Koryo flight to Pyongyang, where they will play two games.

Middlesbrough Ladies will, in their way, be making history. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as it prefers to be known) has so little contact with the outside world that the tour represents one of the most significant cultural exchanges of recent years. But it is also the latest episode in the entirely unlikely relationship between Middlesbrough and North Korea.

Historical link

Back in 1966, when England hosted the World Cup, North Korea played its three group games in the town, and Dave Allan, Middlesbrough’s media manager, said that a bond had existed ever since.

“It wasn’t that long after the Korean War and there were people in Teesside who’d fought in that, and when the Korean team came they were seen as the enemy,” Allan said. “But people really just took them to their hearts. It helped that they played in red, which was the Middlesbrough team colour. But it really was the people themselves, non-stop smiling, and very friendly and open.”

In 1966, North Korea beat Italy in what is routinely referred to as “one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history”, but the team’s failure to win a single game in this year’s finals – the first time they had qualified since then – led to rumours that the national coach had been sent to be “re-educated” on a building site on his return home.

In 2002, Nick Bonner of the travel company Koryo Tours tracked down the 1966 players and brought them back to Middlesbrough in what is still North Korea’s most important non-political exchange with the outside world.

“You don’t hear much about Middlesbrough in this country. But in North Korea they love us,” said Wieczorek. Even more astonishing, she said, they also love women’s football. The North Korean women’s team is currently fifth in the world, and it is as popular a spectator sport as the men’s game.

“Here, on the other hand, it was a battle to even play it when I started out 34 years ago,” said Wieczorek, “and although we’re supported by Middlesbrough FC we still have to raise our own money for transport.”

Culture shock

In North Korea, visitors are expected to bow before statues of the Supreme Leader. Do the Middlesbrough team have any idea what to expect?

Acting captain Rachael Hine, a mortgage adviser with Santander, said: “We know it’s going to be different. But nobody really knows how different.

“We’re just trying to go there with an open mind.”

This was a philosophy that has already been tested. “I told the girls their mobile phones will be confiscated at the airport,” said Wieczorek. “Their jaws just dropped.”

Read the full story here:
Middlesbrough Ladies’ North Korean football tour guarantees place in history
Guardian
Carole Cadwalladr
9/12/2010

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Posted in Civil society, Football (soccer), Koryo Tours, Sports, United Kingdom | 1 Comment »

Some North Koreans signal frustration with succesion

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

According to the Washington Post:

Almost every night, seeking to gather opinion from a country where opinion is often punishable, Kim Eun Ho calls North Korea. He talks mostly to people in Hoeryong city in Hamgyong-bukto province, and the conversations never last long. Hoeryong city employs 14 men who monitor the region’s phone conversations, Kim believes, and typically they can tap a call within two or three minutes. Kim says he knows this because, as a North Korean police officer before he defected in December 2008, he sometimes monitored the conversations.

But these days, with Pyongyang preparing for a Workers’ Party convention that could trumpet the rise of leader Kim Jong Il’s youngest son, Kim Eun Ho and other defectors who speak regularly to North Koreans hear plenty of opinions reflecting what he described as a broad sentiment against hereditary succession.

“Of 10 people I talk to,” he said, “all 10 have a problem with Kim Jong Eun taking over.”

Just as North Koreans know little about their potential future leader, the rest of the world knows almost nothing about North Korean opinions. Recent academic research, based on surveys with defectors, suggests that North Koreans are growing frustrated with a government that allowed widespread starvation in the early 1990s and orchestrated brutal currency reform in 2009 that was designed to wipe out the private markets that enable most residents to feed themselves.

The defectors are motivated to emphasize the worst-case scenario in their homeland. There are some who think that Kim Jong Eun will take power and gradually lead North Korea to Soviet-style reforms. Some defectors say that even though the younger Kim is largely unknown, they hope he’ll allow for a free economy after his father dies.

Still, in South Korea, an emerging patchwork of mini-samples suggests that many North Koreans view their government as a failed anachronism, and they see the young general, as he’s called, as a sign of the status quo. They associate Kim Jong Eun with the December 2009 currency revaluation. They don’t know his age – he’s thought to be in his late 20s – but they think he’s too young to be anything more than a figurehead.

Sohn Kwang Joo, chief editor of the Daily NK, a Seoul-based publication focusing on North Korea, receives frequent reports from stringers in four North Korean provinces. Those ground-level reporters, gathering information mostly from intellectuals, farmers and laborers, suggest to Sohn that “eight or nine out of every 10 people are critical of Kim Jong Eun.”A recent report from PSCORE, a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization promoting harmony on the Korean Peninsula, suggested that two party officials were sent to a gulag last month for slandering the chosen heir. Kim Young Il, a PSCORE director who was in China during Kim Jong Il’s recent trip, said: “Criticism of Kim Jong Eun is very strong. . . . What you see now is face-level loyalty, but it’s not genuine.”

Kim Eun Ho, the former North Korean police officer, works as a reporter for Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio. The nightly routine testifies to the difficulty of gathering information from within the world’s most reclusive state.

Kim first calls a friend who lives close to the Chinese border, where a smuggled foreign cellphone receives a clear signal. When Kim reaches his friend, the friend uses a second phone – a North Korean line – to call one of Kim’s police sources in Pyongyang. The friend then places the North Korean phone and the Chinese phone side-by-side, volume raised on the receivers, allowing Kim an indirect, muffled connection.

For extra caution, the conversations rely on code words.

“For general citizens, Kim Jong Eun is vastly unpopular,” Kim says. “People cannot take him seriously, in reality. He just suddenly appeared, and he’s too young.”

A defector-based survey released in March, co-written by North Korea experts Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard, provided the first sharp indication of growing discontent with Kim Jong Il’s regime, linked in large part to an information seal that no longer keeps everything out. North Koreans have access to South Korean television shows. Some travel to China for business.

For now, though, experts and U.S. officials see little likelihood that North Koreans’ closely guarded skepticism about their government will pose a threat to the government. Without churches and social clubs, North Koreans have few places where opinion can harden into resistance.

“They’ve almost perfected the system of social control,” says Katy Oh Hassig, an expert on North Korea at the Institute for Defense Analyses, which does research for the Pentagon.

Like Kim Eun Ho, Jin Sun Rak, director of Free North Korea Radio, calls his old country almost every night. His wife and 14-year-old daughter live in North Korea. He decided to defect – telling nobody but his brother – in 2008, after traveling to China and seeing the relative wealth. The first time he went, hoping to sell 80 grams of unrefined gold, he bribed a border guard and carried a dagger, tucked near the lower part of a leg. His first night in China was “beyond imagination.” He said he went to a restaurant, had some drinks and ended up at a karaoke bar where he knew none of the songs. Days later, he returned to North Korea with some money and a new frame of reference.

“Whenever they say something,” Jin said of the government, “they’re lying. They’re as worthless as barking dogs.” As for a greater cynicism about the government, Jin said: “I think it’s something unstoppable now. People’s minds have been changed. Young people know the value of money. They don’t want to be party members anymore. They’ve been exposed to the private markets.”

Jin, who lives in Seoul, rarely talks to his wife and daughter. He doesn’t think it’s safe to tell them his opinion.

Read the full story here:
N. Koreans may be frustrated with government and likely rise of Kim Jong Eun
New York Times
Chico Harlan
9/8/2010

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Posted in Cell phones, Communications, Political economy, Pscore | Comments Closed

DPRK software exports

Monday, September 6th, 2010

According to Bloomberg:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has found an unlikely ally to help raise cash for his impoverished regime: The Dude, the pot-smoking underachiever played by Jeff Bridges in the movie “The Big Lebowski.”

Programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film, as well as “Men in Black: Alien Assault,” according to two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, a spokeswoman for the unit said.

They represent a growing software industry championed by Kim that is boosting the economy of one of the poorest countries in the world and raising the technological skills of workers. Contracting with North Korean companies is legal under United Nations sanctions unless they are linked to the arms trade.

“From the government’s point of view, foreign currency is the main reason to nurture and support these activities,” said Andrei Lankov, an academic specializing in North Korea at Seoul- based Kookmin University. “These activities help to fund the regime, but at the same time they bring knowledge of the outside world to people who could effect change.”

The technological education of graduates from North Korean universities has “become significantly better,” Volker Eloesser, a founder of Pyongyang-based Nosotek, said in an e- mail. Companies with “hundreds or even thousands of staff each” operate in North Korea, he said.

Double-Edged Sword

Better trained programmers may also bolster the regime’s cyberwarfare capabilities, said Kim Heung Kwang, who taught computer science at universities in the north for 19 years before defecting to South Korea in 2004. South Korea’s presidential office said July 28 the nation had received intelligence that North Korea may plan an Internet-based attack.

Won Sei Hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers last October that North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for cyber attacks in July 2009 on dozens of websites in South Korea and the U.S.

President Barack Obama widened U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 30, freezing assets of North Korean officials, companies and government agencies suspected of “illicit and deceptive activities” that support the regime’s weapons industry.

Seeking Capability

“Any sort of transaction that gives cash to the North Korean government works against U.S. policy,” said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy group. “The coding skills people would acquire in outsourcing activities could easily strengthen cyberwar cyber-espionage capabilities. Mobile devices are the new frontier of hacking.”

North Korea’s information technology push began in the 1980s as the government sought to bolster the faltering economy, said defector Kim. That drive also led to the creation of a cyber-military unit in the late 1990s, he said. He runs North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group composed of defectors who have graduated from North Korean universities.

Nosotek’s Eloesser disputed any connection between programming for games and cyber-espionage.

“Who could train them, as neither me nor the Chinese engineers who are cooperating with the Koreans have those skills ourselves?” he asked in an e-mail. “Training them to do games can’t bring any harm.”

Joint Venture

Nosotek is a joint venture between the science and technology federation and foreign investors, company vice president Ju Jong Chol said in an e-mail. He said federation members developed both “Big Lebowski Bowling,” set in a rendition of the bowling alley where The Dude spent much of the movie drinking White Russians, and “Men in Black,” in which players battle invading aliens. Eloesser confirmed his comments.

Both games were published by Ojom GmbH, a unit of a company called Jamba that was bought by News Corp. and later renamed Fox Mobile, according to Fox Mobile spokeswoman Juliane Walther in Berlin. They came out after News Corp. took a controlling interest in Jamba in January 2007 and before it bought the remainder in October 2008. Ojom was eliminated in a May 2008 reorganization, Walther said.

When asked whether Fox Mobile distributes games developed in North Korea, Walther said that the unit “has extensive partnerships with content producers in all areas, with operators, and with the biggest media companies worldwide, including various Asian companies.”

No More Details

She said the company could not provide more details on where partners are based or confirm “if and how” North Korean companies were involved in development for Ojom. Dan Berger, a News Corp. spokesman in Los Angeles, declined to comment further. News Corp. is controlled by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch, 79.

Eloesser founded Elocom Mobile Entertainment GmbH in 2003, which later became a subsidiary of Ojom. He said he first visited North Korea in 2005 and helped found Nosotek in 2007.

Nosotek offers clients billing through either a Hong Kong or Chinese company, according to its website, which promises “skills, secrecy, dedication.”

Such practices allow the funds to flow to North Korea, said Paul Tjia, director of Rotterdam, Netherlands-based GPI Consultancy, which helps companies outsource overseas, including to North Korea. Other companies contract with Chinese firms that then subcontract to North Korean companies, he said.

It is “impossible to estimate” how much revenue North Korea earns through software development, he said.

Nosotek’s wares are “of similar good quality to those from other companies in Europe or America,” according to Marc Busse, digital distribution manager at Potsdam, Germany-based Exozet Games GmbH, which has distributed games for Nosotek.

Foreign companies that are reluctant to do business in North Korea need to understand that investment there can help the country modernize and reduce its isolation, Tjia said.

“Most companies are still reluctant, which we think is unfortunate,” he said. North Koreans “need investment, like China in the 1970s.”

Read the full story here
Kim Jong Il Bowls for Murdoch’s Dollars With Korean Video Games
Bloomberg
Matthew Campbell and Bomi Lim
9/6/2010

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Posted in Computing/IT, GPI Consultancy, International trade, Nosotek | Comments Closed

US offers flood aid to DPRK (2010)

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

The United States is offering $750,000 in emergency aid to North Korea to help aid recovery from devastating floods.

The U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights, Robert King, told VOA Wednesday that the money will be given to three U.S. non-governmental organizations — Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services, and Mercy Corps.

He said the organizations will use the money primarily for medical supplies and will fly the aid into Pyongyang beginning later this week.

Read the full story here:
U.S. Offers Flood Aid to N.Korea
Choson Ilbo
9/2/2010

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Posted in Foreign aid statistics, Global Resource Services, International Aid, Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse, USA | 1 Comment »

Agroforestry a success in DPRK

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

According to Medical News Today:

In a country where good news is scarce, a pioneering agroforestry project in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is restoring heavily degraded landscapes and providing much-needed food for communities living on the sloping lands.

Jianchu Xu, East-Asia Coordinator for the World Agroforestry Centre, which has been providing technical expertise and training for the project since 2008, said agroforestry – in this case the growing of trees on sloping land – is uniquely suited to DPR Korea for addressing food security and protecting the environment.

“What we have managed to achieve so far has had a dramatic impact on people’s lives and the local environment,” Jianchu explains.

“Previously malnourished communities are now producing their own trees and growing chestnut, walnut, peaches, pears and other fruits and berries as well as medicinal bushes,” Jianchu explains. “They have more food and vitamins and are earning income through trading”.

Following the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989 and a lack of subsidies for agriculture in DPR Korea, famine and malnutrition became widespread in rural areas.

DPR Korea is a harsh mountainous country where only 16% of the land area is suitable for cultivation. In desperation in the 1990s, people turned to the marginal sloping lands but this had a price: deforestation for cropping land and fuelwood left entire landscapes denuded and depleted of nutrients.

In an effort to reverse the situation, an innovative and pioneering project began in 2002 involving the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Korea’s Ministry of Land and Environmental Protection. The World Agroforestry Centre was later brought in to provide technical advice.

Suan County has since expanded to 65 user groups in seven counties, with several hundred hectares of sloping land now under sustainable management. And the project is still growing.

A system of establishing user groups with one representative from each family has enabled demonstration plots to be set up and a large number of households to benefit from knowledge about growing multi-purpose trees. Such trees can improve and stabilize soils as well as provide fertilizer, fodder or fruits.

Most of the people farming the sloping lands are pension workers with little agricultural experience. The agroforestry systems they are now implementing and the techniques they have learnt are significantly increasing tree cover on the slopes as well giving them a diversity of crops.

Several of the user groups have started their own nurseries so that they can be self-sufficient and produce their own planting materials.

Initially a European consultant was engaged to provide advice on sloping land management, but in 2008 SDC brought the World Agroforestry Centre’s China office into the project.

“With similar experiences and history, our Chinese staff were well-placed to work in DPR Korea,” explains Jianchu. “It was important to have people with an understanding of the technical, institutional and socio-political context.”

There are very few international organizations operating in DPR Korea, and most of these are providing emergency relief. “With our strong focus on capacity development, we have established a good reputation,” adds Jianchu. So much so that the Centre is now negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the government and there are plans to establish an office in the country.

According to Jianchu, one of the most important aspects to ensuring the project is sustained is capacity development at all levels.

“As well as the user groups, we are providing training to multi-disciplinary working groups comprising representatives from the national academy, agricultural universities, forestry research and planning institutes, and staff of the Ministry.”

“There is an enormous need to improve knowledge and skills in DPR Korea in the area of natural resource management and to nurture young scientists,” says Jianchu. SDC is now investing in this area. Each year over the past few years, a handful of students from DPR Korea have undertaken studies with the Center for Mountain Ecosystem Studies, jointly run by the World Agroforestry Centre and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and hosted by the Kunming Institute of Botany in China. Some could be considered for a doctoral program in the future.

To further support the up-skilling of DPR Korea scientists and the up-scaling of agroforestry, the Centre will soon publish an agroforestry manual. Work is also underway on an agroforestry policy for sloping lands management and an agroforestry inventory.

Read the full story here:
Agroforestry A Success In North Korea
Medical News Today
Kate Langford
8/31/2010

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Posted in Agriculture, China, Food, Forestry, International Aid, Lumber, Ministry of Land and Environment Conservation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SADC), World Agroforestry Center | Comments Closed

ROK religious groups push for government food aid to the North

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-08-31-1
8/31/2010

An organization representing several major South Korean religious organizations crossed the DMZ on August 27 to deliver over 300 tons (thirteen 25-ton trucks) of flour to the city of Kaesong, with plans to distribute the aid to North Korea’s children and poverty-stricken. This is the first overland delivery of aid since Seoul’s May 24 measures restricting exchanges in response to the Cheonan incident.

Nine members of the organization, representing Buddhism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, travelled to the North. The group intends to visit one or two nurseries, and distribute flour to Kaesong City as well as Jangpung, Keumchon, Daechon, Chongdan and Yondan districts. The delegation is also delivering six boxes of nutrition supplements for children in Kaesong’s nurseries. Before crossing over into North Korea, the group held a press conference in Paju City’s Imjin Park. At the conference, a representative stated that while the aid shipment was later than desired, the organization thanked the South Korean government for making the decision to allow the delivery while facing a difficult situation in the aftermath of the Cheonan incident.

The organization also stated, “Peninsular denuclearization is also important for bringing peace and security to the Korean Peninsula,” but it is necessary to make ensuring the lives of those in both North and South Korea a top priority, and the group “earnestly hopes that the [South Korean] governments’ active support of humanitarian assistance can save the lives of North Korean residents and help to realize inter-Korean reconciliation and peace.”

The organization also stressed that religious teachings emphasized the need to exert all efforts for the desolate and the starving. The group is devoted to helping resolve the North Korean plight caused by starvation and malnutrition, and through these efforts, bringing about peace on the Korean peninsula. The organization, representing those of Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Protestant, Korean Buddhist, and Chongdo religions, as well as the United Religions Initiative of Korea, continues to pursue renewed government assistance to North Korea.

The Korean Conference of Religion and Peace (KCRP) issued a statement on August 27 declaring that the South Korean government needed to send aid to the North not only in response to the critical situation caused by recent flooding, but in order to help resolve the chronic food shortages causing ongoing hardship for the people of North Korea. In highlighting the plight of North Koreans, the group emphasizes familial and national ties, stressing Korean unity in calling for government assistance for ‘brethren’ in the North. The group also calls for both Seoul and Pyongyang to “open [their] hearts and hold talks on peninsular peace and unification” rather than continue with the current confrontational policies.

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Posted in Food, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, International Aid, Korean Conference of Religion and Peace (KCRP), South Korea | Comments Closed

DPRK farm life worsens on market price instability

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Institutie for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-08-25-1
8/25/2010

The quality of life among North Korea’s agricultural workers has reportedly worsened sharply in recent times. It appears that the aftermath of last November’s currency reform measure has finally reached as far as the farmhouse. According to a report by the group Daily NK, in the town of Onsong, North Hamgyong Province, only 4~5 families per neighborhood unit (around 30 families) manage to eat rice, in the way of ‘corn rice’, three times per day. Most households eat boiled ears of corn or gruel-like corn soup.

While it was thought that the currency reforms would ease the food shortages of farming households, their lives have grown more difficult due to the sudden fluctuations of market prices, driving down the number of farmers able to sell their yields at market. In the Onsong market, rice sold for an average of 1050 won per kilogram on August 20. Compared to the beginning of the month, prices were down approximately 100 won, but are still more than twice as high as just a few months ago. This is, in part, due to the foreign currency exchange rate. One Chinese Yuan is trading for 215 North Korean won.

Actually, North Korean farmers were about the only beneficiaries of the currency reform. Last December saw the biggest public distribution of goods ever. Commerce was up around 15~20 percent over the year prior. In addition, follow-up measures allowed families to collect 10,000-20,000 won each. However, as market prices became increasingly unstable during the first half of this year, it became harder for farmers to sell their goods. Because rice prices would double or triple, then drop again, month after month, it was difficult for a farmer to take 20~30 kilograms of corn to market and get the price they wanted. On top of this, the price of household goods was climbing, driving up the cost of living.

In North Korea, all farmers are obligated to work on cooperative farms, but are also allowed private plots to raise goods for supplementary income. Therefore, when they have an opportunity, most make their way to a local market to sell their goods. The regime considers this ‘supplementary’ income, but actually, the money earned from this practice is what most live off of, using profits from their corn sales to buy other food or necessities. For these farmers, not only is it difficult to sell their crops, but circumstances make it tough even to harvest them. In the case of one farmer in Onsong who works a 1500 pyong private plot, he harvests approximately three tons of corn per year. As those at the cooperative farm receive only 300 kilograms of corn in rations, three tons is not an insignificant amount. However, due to the cost of fertilizer, bribes to authorities, bribes to inspectors, etc., he is left with only around one ton. With fertilizer shortages this spring, considerably less fertilizer was available for private plots.

Even if the farmer saw yields similar to last fall, at today’s prices, he would be able to make only around 500,000 won. This is little more than the 40,000 won/month market traders can make. Farmers with plots of only 500~600 pyong have an even more difficult time. A source explained, “As stories of growing starvation in Kangwon Province spread, people are becoming more distraught,” and, “a family of four lives off of gruel made from one kilogram of potatoes or corn per day.”

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Posted in Agriculture, Fiscal & monetary policy, Food, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market), Institute for Far Eastern Studies | 1 Comment »

DPRK requests flood assistance from US NGO

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

According to the Korea Times:

Christian Friends of Korea (CFK) said on its website last week that the North asked them to respond to a need for food, medicine and construction materials to the “fullest extent possible” to deal with “significant” flood damage.

The organization said it will follow through on a planned visit to North Korea later this month and assess flash flood destruction in the areas it works in.

This marks the first time a U.S.-based NGO has reported receiving an aid request directly from the North Korean government.

“We know from visits in years past of the damage and misery that (can) occur in the DPRK following heavy flooding,” it said.

The North’s official KNCA reported earlier this month that the flooding, brought on by torrential rain, had destroyed homes, roads and buildings. Almost 15,000 hectares of farmland were submerged, it said.

It reported casualties in Jagang and South Hamgyong provinces near its border with China but did not elaborate on how many, nor if people had died. China has also been coping with its worst flooding in decades.

The report did not indicate the level of need for outside help.

CFK is currently working to treat and control tuberculosis in the North, including refurbishing clinics and providing training. It said that in requesting aid, the government asked that it not divert from the medical work.

The original purpose of the planned trip was to confirm earlier aid shipments that included food, medical supplies, greenhouses and farming equipment.

The aid request came amid concerns regarding rivers near the border with China, which have swollen to dangerous levels. Xinhua News Agency reported earlier in the week that more heavy rain is expected in China.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea requests flood aid from U.S.-based NGO
Korea Times
Kim Young-jin
8/17/2010

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Posted in Christian Friends of Korea, International Aid | Comments Closed

Pyongyang International Trade Fair (Sept 2010)

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Information can be found on the European Business Association web page.

General information here (PDF).

Registration information here (PDF).

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Posted in European Business Association, Pyongyang International Trade Fair | Comments Closed

GPI September business delegation to DPRK

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

According to the GPI web page (PDF):

Exploring new business opportunities
European trade & investment mission to North-Korea
(11 – 18 September 2010)

Rotterdam, 29 June 2010
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, also known as North-Korea) finds itself at a new era of international economic cooperation, and it especially welcomes business with Europe. The DPRK is offering various products and services to export markets, while the country is also in need for many foreign products and investments.

In the current financial and economic situation, European companies face many challenges. They must cut costs, develop new products and find new markets.

In these fields, North-Korea is an interesting option.

It established several free trade zones to attract foreign investors and there are several sectors, including renewable energy, textile, shipbuilding, agro business, fishing, horticulture, logistics, mining, stone processing, restaurants and Information Technology, that can be considered for trade and investment. DPRK is competing with other Asian countries by offering skilled labour for very low monthly wages. In particular companies with production facilities in China, where the wages are rising fast, are currently investigating alternative options in North-Korea.

Do you want to explore new business opportunities for your company? From 11 to 18 September 2010, GPI Consultancy will organize again a trade & investment mission in order to investigate these business opportunities. This tour is open for business participants from all European countries. Note: in case this date is not convenient for you, other trade missions will take place in 2011.

Our previous economic missions to Pyongyang were informative and successful. The participants found the program, with tailor made business meetings and company visits, interesting and well-varied. In addition, there were many opportunities for informal meetings. A report of such a mission can be found at: www.gpic.nl/NK-report2009.pdf

During our upcoming trip in September, the annual Autumn International Trade Fair in Pyongyang will be held. A visit to this interesting trade fair will be included; participation with a booth is also possible.

Business mission September 2010: short overview
Members of our business delegation will be able to discuss trade opportunities in several areas, including light industry (e.g. textiles, garments, ceramics), agribusiness, fishing, mining, energy and Information Technology / Business Process Outsourcing. We will also receive information about investment opportunities in a number of sectors, and several projects will be offered.

Taking part in a business mission is a very informative way to explore business opportunities in DPRK in detail, and to meet new potential business partners. Participation is also useful for those European companies already doing business with DPRK, since it gives them an easy option to meet their Korean trade partners personally.

Itinerary
Saturday 11 September: Departure of European participants to Beijing (note: departure at an earlier date is possible).

Sunday 12 September: The participants will meet; informal welcome reception and dinner at a local restaurant. Introduction to the studytour.

Monday 13 September: In the morning: visa collection at the DPRK Embassy in Beijing. Receiving Air Koryo airplane tickets. Afternoon: available for individual program. Tentative: the seminar: “Doing business with DPRK” takes place. The event, with several speakers, will address various aspects of doing business in DPRK.

Tuesday 14 September: Transport from the hotel to the airport will be provided. Departure from Beijing to Pyongyang, using the national airline Air Koryo. Upon arrival, we meet representatives of the DPRK Chamber of Commerce. Transport will be arranged to the hotel. Schedules of business meetings will be handed out to the participants, after which a welcome dinner will take place.

Wednesday 15 – Friday 17 September: In the mornings, business meetings with representatives of North-Korean companies will commence in the hotel. These meetings will be arranged, on request by the participants, by the DPRK Chamber of Commerce. In the afternoons, the delegates can visit firms in and around Pyongyang from a range of sectors, including agriculture, textiles and garments, ceramics, computer software, art, animation and cartoons.

A visit to the 6th Pyongyang Autumn International Trade Fair is included. This fair takes place from 13 – 16 September and is organized by the Korea International Exhibition Corporation. In addition, we meet members of EBA (European Business Association): European business people working and living in DPRK.  There is also some time available for informal activities, such as a citytour in and around Pyongyang, a visit to an art gallery and the spectacular Arirang Massgame.

Saturday 18 September: In the morning, departure from Pyongyang to Beijing. Upon arrival, participants can take a connecting flight to Europe, or decide to spent more time in China.

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