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After Test, Life in Pyongyang Goes On

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

Donga
12/7/2006

As the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution against North Korea, some of the projects pursued in partnership with Pyongyang needed to be postponed. So I explained the background to a North Korean director-level official in charge of relevant work, but he knew nothing about the UNSC sanctions.”

He suggested that the U.S.` financial sanctions against the North were already having an impact on the upper class. “I recently met a businessman selling medical devices to North Korea, who told me that the sales of blood pressure testers widely used by the North Korean upper class recently dropped dramatically. I believe this is because foreign currency inflows into North Korea are on the decline due to the financial sanctions against it,” he explained.

He also mentioned subtle changes taking place in relations between North Korea and China that have become growingly complex these days.

“The North is recently beefing up security measures against Chinese merchants operating in Pyongyang. The development project of the Musan iron mine in North Hamgyong Province of North Korea, which China has pushed for enthusiastically as part of its endeavor to secure natural resources, is put off for now. It is reported that after the North Korean nuclear test, the Chinese authorities ordered a postponement of the project for the time being.” As China needs raw material in the long term, however, he projected, “Though there currently are some conflict factors between China and North Korea, China will have to support the North as it does not want the country to collapse.”

With regard to what North Korean society as a whole is like after the nuclear test, he stated, “There are absolutely no signs of political changes. The North Korean regime`s control over the society is rock-solid, not being swayed at all.” He also indicated, however, “More recently, the North Korean authorities are strengthening their control over foreigners there.”

As to why the North Korean regime forces humanitarian international groups leave the country and tries not to receive food aid from outside, he cited two reasons: First, as international groups have operated in the North for a long period of time, North Korean residents started to show “real goodwill” to them. This leads to social uncertainties there. Second, as a country emphasizing “self-reliance,” North Korea finds it hurting its ego to receive foreign aid every year.

He worried that a food shortage is expected when the season of spring poverty unfolds in earnest in April. He stressed, “Given this year`s harvest was not good, if foreign aid decreases, North Korea is highly likely to face the worst-ever food shortage, arbeit not a famine, since the mid-1990s (dubbed the “Painful March under Trials”). Help from the international community is desperately needed.”

Regarding his life as a diplomat in Pyongyang, he said that even though he needed to get permission from the North Korean authorities to go to provincial areas, he could move freely within downtown Pyongyang. As the structure of everyone monitoring each other has been internalized in North Korea, he added, when one tries to shoot an “inappropriate” scene from the perspective of North Korea, someone appears out of nowhere to stop him.

He plans to return to Pyongyang sooner or later.

Posted in Agriculture, China, International Aid | 1 Comment »

Local Agriculture Officials Prosecuted

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

Daily NK
Shin Joo Hyun
12/6/2006

An unidentified official document of the North Korean government, which was released recently, showed that senior local agriculture officials were reprimanded for low productivity rates and fake production reports in early November.

After thorough inspection by the Korean Workers’ Party central committee, the officials were accused of reporting false figures of agricultural production and embezzlement of products. Those who got caught would be expelled from the party and prosecuted, according to the document.

Authenticity of the document will be verified by the prosecution of the local agriculture officials and appointment of succeeding heads of local agriculture policy. If the document turns out to be genuine, it means that this year’s food production in North Korea will be gravely low and there must be someone to take responsibility.

In 1997, at the peak of the March of Tribulation, the Central Party Secretary for Agriculture Seo Kwan Hee was publicly executed for ‘spy activities.’ The incident is supposed to be Kim Jong Il’s pretext for famine and failed agricultural policy, with Seo being a scapegoat.

At the public execution site, the Pyongyang Regional Court’s justice sentenced Seo to death for ‘working as an American spy for more than 30 years and deliberately failing the Party’s agricultural policy, such as implementing inappropriate seeds and so on.’

It was also pointed out that the recent prosecution of senior agriculture officials reflected North Korean bureaucrats’ widespread corruption.

In North Korea, fraud and bribery are common from the central party to local party committees. Thus, it is possible that the central party inspection squad might have methodically already investigated personal corruption cases of the officials.

Defining embezzlement of agricultural products as felony represents the North Korean authority’s fear of possible famine. However, it is suspected that while most of the officials are corrupted, only agriculture bureaucrats are punished in order to throw the blame of the forthcoming food shortage on them; the expulsion of provincial agriculture officials of Hwanghae, Pyongan, and Hamkyong provinces from the KWP and their prosecution is intended to create scapegoats for Kim Jong Il in case of another horrible famine.

Posted in 1990s Famine, Agriculture | Comments Closed

N. Korea promises aid to Zanzibar’s agricultural sector

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

Since North Korean diplomats and and embassies self-finance their operations (i.e. they don’t get any funds or salaries from back home to run the pace) I would suspect that the word “aid” is not really the right word. I suspect it is more of an “investment”.

Kyodo News (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
12/5/2006

North Korea has promised to give the East African island territory of Zanzibar more than $1 million in aid to help its agricultural sector, Chinese state media reported Tuesday.
Soon Chun Lee, North Korea’s ambassador to Tanzania, made the pledge when he met Zanzibari President Aman Abeid Karume in Zanzibar, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Starting from early next year, North Korea will finance water projects and mango reservation projects in the isles, Xinhua reported, adding that the country will also dispatch agricultural experts to the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Karume expressed his thanks for North Korea’s “assistance in boosting the agricultural development of the isles,” Xinhua said.

The promise of aid comes as North Korea faces a shortfall of food this year that will be at least 500,000 tons, Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the World Food Program’s North Korea country director, told Kyodo News on Tuesday. That amount of food is worth at least $100 million.

De Margerie added that the food shortage in North Korea could be even worse next year, reaching 1 million tons. In a country that produces about 5.3 million tons of food a year, that is a shortfall of nearly 20 percent.

North Korea, which experienced a famine in the 1990s, has been fed in recent years by multilateral aid given through the WFP and direct bilateral assistance from China and South Korea.

But food shipments through these channels decreased this year, in part because the North Korean government told the WFP that the emergency food crisis was over and so the U.N. body should scale back its operations, said de Margerie.

“We estimate that 6 million people need food assistance in the country, and because aid has not come this year, lots of people did not have enough to eat. Lots of vulnerable regions cannot meet their basic food needs,” he added.

According to the World Bank, Zanzibar, which has a political union with Tanzania, is one of the world’s poorest territories.

Posted in Agriculture, Tanzania | 2 Comments »

UN-FAO says DPRK needs 1 million tons of food aid

Sunday, December 3rd, 2006

Yonhap
12/2/2006

North Korea completed its crop harvest, and results suggest the country will need at least 1 million tons of food aid from the outside, according to a report released Thursday by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In “Crop Prospects and Food Situation,” the fourth such report put out by the FAO, North Korea was categorized as a nation with widespread lack of access to food.

“The 2006 cereal output is estimated lower than in the previous year, reflecting floods in July and October in parts of the country,” said the report.

“The total cereal import requirement in 2006/2007, including commercial imports and food aid, is expected to be at least 1 million tons.”

The 2006 harvest season was completed in October, the report said, but food rations for millions of people will remain reduced as a result of a suspension of food aid.

South Korea, on the other hand, was expected to have 3 million tons in cereal stock in 2007, slightly up from 2.8 million tons this year.

Posted in Agriculture, Foreign aid statistics, South Korea, UN Food and Agriculture Organization | Comments Closed

Sanctions may hurt Kim’s “gift politics”

Friday, November 17th, 2006

World Peace Herald
Lee Jong-Heon
11/17/2006

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has recently recognized the academic works of dozens of local scholars by presenting them with wrist watches as part of his “gift politics.” But this policy may not last much longer when the international community implements the U.N. sanctions resolution slapped on North Korea following its nuclear test last month.

According to the (North) Korean Central News Agency, a total of 26 professors and officials at the country’s prestigious Kim Il Sung University were awarded the watches inscribed with the captions, “Gift of Great Leader Kim Il Sung,” in reference to the country’s founding leader and father of the current leader Kim Jong Il.

The award was part of Kim’s unique ruling technique of using gifts to keep a key group of supporters in his hands.

Under the “gift politics,” Kim has provided wrist watches and other luxury goods to his aides and ruling elite members to reward their unconditional loyalty toward him. Most of the luxury items were made outside of North Korea, in places such as Japan or Switzerland, according to North Korean defectors and intelligence sources.

Gifts for loyalists also include cars, pianos, camcorders and leather love seats, among others.

But the North Korean leader may no longer use the “gift politics” because U.N. members have moved to impose bans on shipments of luxury goods — including cars and wrist watches — in a bid to obstruct the personal consumptions of Kim Jong Il and his ruling elite.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1718 after the North’s nuclear test last month, calling for all U.N. members to impose wide-ranging sanctions on the communist country, including a ban on exports of luxury goods as well as large conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

In line with the U.N. resolution, Japan’s Cabinet this week approved bans on exports of 24 kinds of luxury goods to North Korea, including cars, wrist watches, alcohol, cigarettes, jewelry, perfume and caviar.

The list also includes beef, tuna fillet, cosmetics, leather bags, fur products, crystal glass, motorcycles, yachts, cameras, musical instruments, fountain pens and works of art antiquities. The total export value of the 24 items was about $9.2 million in 2005.

Posted in Agriculture, Civil society, International trade, Japan, Music, Political economy | Comments Closed

North Korean Loggers in Siberia

Monday, November 13th, 2006

Korea Times:
11/13/2006
Andrei Lankov

For the last few decades a visitor to Eastern Siberia would sometimes come across unusual logging camps: fenced off with barbed wire, they sported the telltale portraits of Kim Ilsung and Kim Jong-il. These are North Korean camps: from the late 1960s, North Korean loggers have been working in Russia’s Far East.

In the 1960s the timber shortage was felt both in North Korea and the USSR, but the reasons for the shortages were different.

The Russians had plenty of forest, but lacked labor. When the gulags were emptied after Stalin’s death, few people were willing to up and fell trees in remote corners of Siberia.

The North Koreans had an abundance of cheap labor, but almost no good timber. Thus, the two Communist states had a potential match made in heaven.

In March 1967, when the relations between the two countries began to recover after a serious chill, the logging agreement was signed.

According to the agreement North Korean loggers were allowed to work in designated areas of the Russian Far East.

They were housed in special labor camps, run by the North Korean administration. The timber was to be divided between the two sides: the Russians 60 percent and the North Koreans 40 percent.

At their peak in the mid-1980s the Far East joint logging projects employed over 20,000 North Korean workers. This means that some 0.5 percent of all North Korean able-bodied men labored there. Nowadays, the operations are smaller in scale, with some 8,000 workers employed. An additional 3,000 North Korean workers are employed in other joint projects in Russia (construction industry, vegetable gardening etc.). Since the workers were rotated every three years, it is likely that up to a quarter of a million North Koreans have taken part in this project over the decades.

Politically, this was not as dangerous as it might seem. Even in the 1960s, the Soviet Union had far higher standards of living and was much more liberal and permissive society than the North.

However, the North Korean workers were in the middle of nowhere, and kept under the watchful eyes of their supervisors in the nearly isolated camps. People who broke the rules were arrested and sent back to the North. If it was deemed too difficult or impractical, they could be killed on the spot _ the Siberian forests provided more than enough space for unknown burials.

The Soviets usually turned a blind eye to everything the North Korean administrators did. In the early 1990s the situation changed. During the heyday of perestroika, investigative journalists began to report on the conditions of the North Korean workers.

An expose of the prison maintained by the North Korean security police in one of the logging camps led to a particular public outcry. In those days the Russians felt a nearly universal enthusiasm for democracy and believed that Kim Il-sung’s regime would soon collapse.

There were also publications about the secret opium plantations and illegal harvesting of protected species of plants and animals _ both, frankly, long established pillars of North Korea’s foreign currency earning programs.

On top of that, some loggers used the change in the international situation to defect to the South. In those days, defectors were still rare and thus welcomed in Seoul.

In 1992-1994 it appeared that the entire timber project would be discontinued owing to political considerations. However, the situation changed. The events of 1992-2005 made Russians quite skeptical about democracy, and very suspicious of idealistic crusades of any kind.

Thus, the North Korean camps were left alone to the great relief of the local Russian administrators and businessmen who make good money out of these projects.

For them, the North Koreans were but a source of cheap labor, and they did not care how these “Orientals” were treated by their supervisors.

When the initial Russian enthusiasm for a free press died out, the local politicians learned how to keep journalists away.

By the late 1990s, it also became clear that South Korea was not going to encourage the defection of the loggers. On the contrary, anecdotal evidence indicates that loggers who approach the local South Korean consulate are unceremoniously turned away.

Seoul does not need these impoverished and potentially troublesome brethren in our sunshiny days! Of course, some loggers run away, but largely in order to find better job opportunities in Russia’s black economy.

There are about a thousand such runaways hiding in Russia now, but the authorities tend to ignore their presence.

But what was the incentive for the North Koreans workers? The short answer is: money.

Really good money _ at least, by North Korean standards.

Posted in Agriculture, Illicit activities, International trade, Lumber, Russia | 2 Comments »

Mass Protest Incident in Hoiryeong

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

From the Daily NK
11/9/2006

On Tuesday, a number of residents in Hoiryeong, North Hamkyong Province mass-protested in front of the Nammun (a south gate) market for “compensation of market refurbishment payment” and against the merger of Hoiryeong markets, according to a North Korean source.

The inside source told the Daily NK through a telephone interview that evening ,“From this morning, more than a hundred shopkeepers, their families and the residents of Nammun district rushed to the market management office to request compensation of market refurbishment fees and repeal of Nammun market closure.”

The informant said that the mass protested against the local government because they were stirred by the authority’s decision. It is extremely exceptional that such a mass protest occurs in North Korean society.

They formed lines to present their opinions and in the meantime, some traders shouted phrases such as “Refund the refurbishment payments!” The primitive type of protest in North Korea, in which any kind of private mass activities are forbidden, means much more than western societies’ demonstrations. “No one particularly led the incident,” the informer testified, “but outraged merchants poured into the management office as a group.”
Security officers forcefully dispersed the protestors and crowd.

He added that Hoiryeong local security officers, fearing a spreading of the protest, forcefully dispersed the protesters and crowd. And it was not clarified whether any of the protestors got arrested.

Nammun market is two kilometers southeast of Hoiryeong city, and a frequent place for shopping of food and other basic supplies by local residents.

The incident occurred when the market management officials started to remove the market.

The officials had been collecting three thousand NK won per trader as “refurbishment fees” since late October.

That morning, however, the market management office ordered all the markets in Hoiryeong to be combined with newly constructed Hoiryeong Market, which is located former Hoiryeong Southern middle school, unilaterally, and started to remove the shops in the Nammun market.

Shopkeepers of Nammun market, having been unaware of such a decision, could not accept the order, the informant told the Daily NK. And none of them was guaranteed with a spot at the new Hoiryeong Market; even if one was, there would be a lot of time and money to be spent before actually having a shop at the new market.

Those shopkeepers of the Nammun Market, waiting for the opening hour, saw the removal of their stands, and sought the management officials. When they found any official unavailable, an angry outburst came.
There was a violent clash among angry residents.

The stand-owners and their families went to the office and asked accountable senior officials for compensation, which they did not receive. One protestor reportedly shouted, “It is ridiculous to walk five kilometers (to the new Hoiryeong Market) to buy a piece of Tofu!”

It was informed that amid the protest there was a violent clash among angry residents. When a man watching the demonstration said it was meaningless to protest, shopkeepers assaulted him for collaborating with the officials.

As soon as an act of violence happened, tens of security officers came to the site and dispersed the protestors and bystanders. Meanwhile, traders vehemently resisted and abused the security guards.

The newly built Hoiryeong Market is constructed at the site of closed Hoiryeong Southern middle school with about 700 sale stands, which are one meter long and a half meter wide. A down payment of 200,000 NK won (US$690) and daily rental fee of 10 to 30 won are required for a stand. Black market exchange rate is over 3000 won per US dollar while official one is 140 per a dollar.

Posted in 2002 Economic reforms, Agriculture, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market), Price liberalization, Private property | Comments Closed

Perilous Journeys:

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

The Plight of North Koreans in China and Beyond
International Crisis Group
10/26/2006
PDF Here: Perilous Journeys.pdf

Executive Summary

Scores of thousands of North Koreans have been risking their lives to escape their country’s hardships in search of a better life, contributing to a humanitarian challenge that is playing out almost invisibly as the world focuses on North Korea’s nuclear program. Only a little over 9,000 have made it to safety, mostly in South Korea but also in Japan, Europe and the U.S. Many more live in hiding from crackdowns and forcible repatriations by China and neighbouring countries, vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. If repatriated to the North, they face harsh punishment, possibly execution. China and South Korea have held back, even during the Security Council debate over post-test sanctions, from applying as much pressure as they might to persuade Pyongyang to reverse its dangerous nuclear policy, in part because they fear that the steady stream of North Koreans flowing into China and beyond would become a torrent if the North’s economy were to collapse under the weight of tough measures. While there is marginally more hope Beijing will change its ways than Pyongyang, concerned governments can and must do far more to improve the situation of the border crossers.

Even without a strong response to the 9 October 2006 nuclear test that targets the North’s economy, the internal situation could soon get much worse. The perfect storm may be brewing for a return to famine in the North. Last year, Pyongyang reintroduced the same public distribution system for food that collapsed in the 1990s and rejected international humanitarian assistance, demanding instead unmonitored development help. Funding for remaining aid programs is difficult to secure, and summer floods have damaged crops and infrastructure.

Hunger and the lack of economic opportunity, rather than political oppression, are the most important factors in shaping a North Korean’s decision to leave “the worker’s paradise”. A lack of information, the fear of being caught by Chinese or North Korean security agents and financial limitations are more significant barriers than any actual wall or tight security at the border. China compensates for the virtual absence of border guards with a relentless search for North Koreans in hiding. In

October 2006, Chinese authorities began to build a fence along the frontier and conduct neighbourhood sweeps to find and arrest the border crossers. Despite these formidable obstacles, the willingness among North Koreans to risk their lives to escape is growing stronger, and arrivals in the South are likely to hit a record this year. The most important pull factor shaping the decision to leave is the presence of family members in China and, increasingly, South Korea. The nearly 9,000 defectors in the South are able to send cash and information to help their loved ones escape. To a lesser but significant extent, information is beginning to spread in the North through smuggled South Korean videos, American and South Korean radio broadcasts, and word of mouth – all exposing North Koreans to new ideas and aspirations.

Most North Koreans do not arrive in China with the intention of seeking official asylum, but because Beijing is making it ever more difficult for them to stay, a growing number are forced to travel thousands of kilometres and undertake dangerous border crossings in search of refuge in Mongolia or South East Asia. The mass arrests of 175 asylum seekers in Bangkok in August 2006 and a further 86 on 24 October provide vivid examples of host country hospitality being stretched to the limits.

The vast majority of North Koreans who have made it to safety resettle in South Korea. In most instances, this is a choice motivated by language, culture and the promise of being reunited with family members. In a growing number of cases, the overly burdensome procedures for being granted asylum anywhere else is the deciding factor. With the exception of Germany, the governments that have pressed most vigorously for improving North Korean human rights, namely the U.S., the European Union member states and Japan, have taken in only a handful of asylum seekers.

A loose network of makeshift shelters focused on humanitarian aid has evolved into a politically-charged but fragile underground railroad on which some North Koreans can buy safe passage to Seoul in a matter of days, while others suffer years of violence and exploitation. If they are to minimise the exploitation of the most vulnerable and enhance the much-needed aid this network delivers, concerned governments must commit to a sustainable solution.

None of the policies proposed in this report would create unmanageable burdens for any government. Unless North Korea’s economy collapses completely, the numbers of its citizens crossing international borders will continue to be restricted by many factors, not least Pyongyang’s tight controls on internal movement and the financial cost of securing an escape route. However, it is time to back up strong words and resolutions about the plight of North Koreans with actions, both because humanity demands it and because if the international community cannot quickly get a handle on this situation, it will find it harder to forge an operational consensus on the nuclear issue.

Posted in Agriculture, Black markets, Economic reform, Emigration, International Aid, Labor conditions/wages, Political economy, Price liberalization, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Autumn Harvest at Cooperative Farms

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

From the Korea Times:
10/23/2006

Every autumn the North Korean newspapers shower their readers with pictures and lengthy reports about the unbelievable happiness felt by North Korean farmers.
November is the time when the annual food distribution is made in the agricultural cooperatives, and farmers are reportedly overwhelmed with joy about the great harvest. As the Great Leader himself once pointed out, every year in the North was to see a bumper harvest, and nothing else could possibly be reported.

The world of most North Korean farmers is limited to their cooperative farm (hyoptong nongjang in Korean). Koreans are not allowed to change their place of residence at will, and until the social disruption of the mid-1990s even brief trips outside one’s native country were rare since such trips required police permission.

Men spend 7-10 years in the army, but if they returned back to their native village after military service, they usually stayed there for the rest of their lives.

Collective farms were first introduced to the North in the 1950s, and by 1958 membership was obligatory for all peasants.

In joining the collective farms, the farmers had to give up their land, orchards, essential agricultural tools, cattle and the like. They were allowed to have tiny kitchen gardens, to grow a couple of fruit trees and to keep chicken. In regard to larger animals, like pigs or sheep or dogs (kept for food, of course), the policy has changed a number of times.

In theory, the collective’s property belongs to its members, but this fiction never misled anybody. In everything but name, the collective farm is a state-run and governmentowned institution.

Its major task is to meet government- defined production quotas and provide the state with foodstuffs. The farm is managed by people appointed by the authorities. It is supervised by the local (county-level) ‘Farming Management Committee’ which, in turn, is subordinated to the similar committee at the provincial level.

The entire structure is supervised by the National Agricultural Committee which in 1998 was renamed the ‘Ministry of Agriculture.’

In addition to the collective farms, the North has very similar institutions called ‘state-run farms.’ There are some fine distinctions in management style, but from a common farmer’s prospective, the difference between these two types of farms is negligible.

In the past decade a number of collective farms were transformed into state farms (this process mirrored the developments in the USSR in the 1970s).

Currently, there are some 3,300 collective farms in the North, as well as some 200 state farms. The average collective farm comprises 500-800 households, but the actual size varies depending on the area.

Typically, the farm headquarters is located in a larger village, surrounded by a number of smaller settlements. Each collective farm has its own health center, library and other welfare institutions.

According to the system which was established in the late 1950s and which existed without much change until the recent economic crash, the farmers worked in units known as ‘productive groups,’ each group being responsible for a particular area or project.

All members had every tenth day off _ no Sundays. All harvest had to be given to the state. In exchange, in autumn a part of it was distributed back to the farmers with much celebration and pomp. Usually, an ablebodied adult would receive some 250-300 kilograms of cereals plus some other items of food.

For children or older people the norms were proportionally less. However, the distribution was conditional on meeting government quotas. If quotas were not met, then rations were cut.

Unlike many (indeed, most) communist countries, the North never tolerated even small-scale private farming. The kitchen plots were very small and, in some periods, non-existent. Markets were forbidden, or at the least discouraged.

Obviously, this was done to deprive the farmers of any alternative to working hard in the state’s plots. This policy was augmented by draconian punishments meted out to those foolish enough to attempt to retain any of the ‘state produce’ for themselves.

Economically, the collective farms have never been efficient, but for three decades they managed to provide the country with the necessary minimum of food.

The economic disaster of the mid-1990s changed that. In some cases it led to a quiet piecemeal dismantling of the collective farms, never to be admitted by the authorities.

Posted in Agriculture, Civil society | Comments Closed

North Koreans hoarding rice

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

From the Daily NK:
10/23/2006
Kang Jae Hyok

According to a North Korean source, while international community has been worried that North Korea will undergo “the second march of tribulation”, recently the number of North Korean people who lay in rice has been increasing.

Kim Jong Hee(pseudonym, 39), Chungjin resident said on the phone interview with the DailyNK that, “In spite of Fall, the price of rice is not decreasing”, and “These days the number of people who buy rice is sharply increasing”.

Kim added that from last June the price of rice is 1,000~1,200 won (0.30 US$~0.36 US$) per 1kg and in August it increased up to 1,300 won, yet even in October(now) the price is not decreasing. The price of corn wet up to 300 or 400 won.

It is natural that in fall the price of rice goes down and in spring goes up. So people lay in rice in fall. However, given that the price of rice does not go down until now, in the next spring it will be expected to go up more. Because of it, it seams that people lay in more rice in advance.

The exchange rate of yuan in black market is 360won of North Korea per 1 yuan. In 1990, the exchange rate was 1:25 and in 2002 after the 7.1. Economic Management Improvement Measure it was 1: 300. Recently it goes up to 1: 360. In addition, 1 dollar is 3,300 won of North Korea.
“Only interested in survival, never in nuclear test”

Responding to a question “do you know North Korea did nuclear test?”, Kim said that, “I do not care about whether the North Korean government did the test or not. I am busy supporting our family so I have time to think about that”. According to him, because there have been electronic lights there, people cannot know about what happened in the world.

Kim who is a vendor selling Chinese goods in Sunam market, Chungjin said that for a few days Chinese vendors have not come in Chungjin and now are around Haeryung. In the past the Chinese vendors came in once a week, yet now it is letting up at the same time the price of goods are increasing.

Regarding this trend, some people explained that because of the tension in Korean peninsular caused by the nuclear test the Chinese vendors have visited less and less and because of the censoring in goods introduced in North Korea, the amount of goods coming in North Korea has decreased.

Kim said that now Chinese goods in North Korean markets amount for more than 80%. If the sanction of China against North Korea is taken, the North Korean Jangmadangs will be negatively influenced.

Kim also said that, “Unless the Chinese goods are not introduced, we cannot survive”, and now it is the time to lay in rice for the next spring. This is what is most important to us now”.

Posted in Agriculture, Arduous March, China, International trade, Sunam market | Comments Closed

North Korean Economy Watch