North Korean Economy Watch

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

North Korean state personnel are making good money from currency arbitrage. Daily NK has a story on how security personnel in the country regularly buy foreign currency in border towns where it’s cheaper than in cities like Pyongyang:

Using their authority over screening passengers on the train as a guise, MPS railway personnel in on the scheme actively pursue exchange deals in main border towns such as North Hamgyong Province’s Rason and North Pyongan Province’s Sinuiju. Each day, Pyongyang-based railway cadres pick out four members who are known to be good at nabbing these deals and put two as a team on the Pyongyang-Sinuiju (trains no. 5, 6) and Pyongyang-Duman River (trains no. 7, 8) trains, so they can exchange money, according to the source.   

This one example among many of state personnel benefit from informal economic activity, through their official roles. It often makes little sense to talk about the market versus the state, as if they were two wholly separate entities.

Read the full story:
MPS personnel profiting on exchange rate disparities
Choi Song Min
Daily NK 
12-01-2015

According to UPI:

North Korea drastically reduced grain imports from China in 2015, and a South Korean analyst said the decrease is a sign North Korea’s food situation could be improving.

Kwon Tae-jin, director of East Asia research at GS&J Institute in South Korea, said grain imports were down 71 percent between January and October 2015, Voice of America reported.

South Korean newspaper Segye Ilbo reported Kwon used data from China’s customs authorities – which indicated imports of Chinese corn, rice, flour and soybeans had fallen to 42,000 tons, down from 144,000 tons in 2014.

Soybeans, or legumes, were the only category of grain imports that did not register a decrease, tripling in volume to 5,640 tons in 2015. Wheat flour imports dropped 80 percent, but it was unclear why some imports were more in demand than others.

The value of total grain imports was down 72 percent from the prior year, to $2.04 million, according to Kwon.

Imports of fertilizer used to grow crops also were down 41 percent between January and October, a trend that shadowed overall China-North Korea trade and investment activities, which have declined for two consecutive years, VOA reported.

China is North Korea’s No. 1 trading partner, but Pyongyang has been working to move away from economic dependency.

Kwon said that inside North Korea grain prices are very stable, and the food supply situation is not bad, judging by the numbers.

“This year [North Korea] did not need to import much grain, or receive a lot of support from the international community, in order to stabilize food prices,” Kwon said.

The South Korean analyst said the stable prices could be a sign the North Korean market has confidence in the regime in Pyongyang. The drop in demand for imported grain also indicates the supply situation is quite stable in North Korea.

Kwon said that North Korea’s dry spell in 2015 could have had a negative impact on the country’s harvest, but overall the situation is “probably not as dire as many fear.”

The researcher said the market also prices in future uncertainty into grain value, and stable prices indicate buyers are less concerned about future scarcity.

Here is similar coverage in NK News.

Read the full story here:
North Korea imports of Chinese grain decline 70 percent
Elizabeth Shim
UPI
2015-12-1

No sooner do I publish an article on the Sinuiju International Economic Zone (read it here at 38 North) than the DPRK releases more information on it.

In the December issue of Foreign Trade (2015 No.4), the DPRK includes information on the zone, including this map:

UPDATE: Dr. Haggard uploaded a nicer version of the image which you can see here.

The map indicates that the downtown area of Sinuiju and the western coast down to the new Amnok River Bridge will constitute the first phase of development. Space has been allocated for trade, industry, sewage, warehousing, and other designated areas. The map also indicates a new road is to be built linking the Wihwado Economic Zone (to the north east of the Sinuiju SEZ) with the new Yalu River Bridge (which has yet to be opened for business) and Ryongchon County.

Here is a satellite image of the specific areas being designated for the first phase of the zone with proposed roads added for visual effect:

This is what the article had to say about the zone:

Sinuiju International Economic Zone

Located in a border area, the zone has a bright prospect for the development of water and marine transport. Its development area is 40km^2.

The Zone is a flat area composed of deposits of organic fine sand in the mouth of the Amnok. The average height of ground inside the bank is 45m, geomorphology is 0-.7% and the average height above the sea level is up to 100m.

Its annual average duration of sunshine 2,427 hours, annual percentage of sunshine is 58% and annual average precipitation is 1001.5 mm.

The first and second annual main winds are northeast and and north winds respectively. It has the northeast and north winds in winter and southwest wind in summer in the main.

The Sinuiju International Economic Zone will provide opportunity for bonded processing, bonded transportation, trade and financial business, tourism, hi-tech industry, and various other business activities.

To this end, it is planned to develop the zone into a comprehensive economic zone with a large-sized latest IT industry area, competitive production area, exports processing area, cargo area, trade and financial area, public service area, tourist area and a bonded port, and into an international city with an airport and trade port.

Encompassing the whole of Sinuiju and two ri surrounding it, the zone is already furnished with infrastructure. However, it is necessary to upgrade the existing infrastructure and expand its capacity and build in its suburbs on a preferential basis.

The items of the construction of infrastructure include port, airport, railways, roads, power station, heating, and gas-supply system, telecommunications (international, domestic, mobile and computer network), and water supply, sewage-treating and garbage disposing systems.

As the zone has rich and good workforce whose education level is higher than secondary education, and many competitive heavy- and light-industry factories and enterprises around it, the investment by foreign business will be cost-effective and conducive to its development.

Previous posts on the Sinuiju International Economic Zone can be found here. Previous posts on the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region can be found here.

The North Koreans have also set up the Sinuiju-River Amnok Tourist Zone which you can read about here.

The JoongAng Ilbo has additional information here.

For what it is worth, here is the route taken by Ri Ul-sol’s funeral procession:

It started at the Central Worker’s Hall and ended at the Patriotic Martyr’s Cemetery. The route is approximately 17.5km (10.87 miles).

Michael Madden has info on Ri Ul-sol here, here, here, and here.

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein 

The upgrades of Pyongyang seem to continue with no signs of slowing down. Kim Jong-un has made Pyongyang’s massive facelift into one of the hallmarks of his tenure. Not just theme parks have been given attention. Since a few years back, people have spoken of a “building boom” in Pyongyang. Many believe there is a political calculation behind it all: happy capital city elites, happy regime.

In the rest of the country, however, not much is happening. If the regime is betting on being able to keep elites happy by building them nicer things, it is certainly placing a lot of eggs in the same geographical basket. Upgrading Pyongyang might make North Korea look wealthier to visitors and the occasional reporter, but that doesn’t mean that the economy is really on a new track.

The latest in a long line of stark reminders of the vast differences between Pyongyang and the rest of the country is the report that the capital city is getting new subway cars. The iconic ones from East Berlin may come to be retired. Earlier this month, the state newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim had taken a test ride on a newly manufactured subway car, from Kaeson station (near Pyongyang’s Arch of Triumph) through four different stops.

Kim, of course, gave a few words of wisdom: he praised the performance of the car, approving both of the speed and the breaks. He went on to say that the new train car felt safe, and fulfilled all the demands of public transportation. With “our Juche capacity (주체적력량) and scientific technology, we can manufacture everything.”

These things may of course hold propaganda value. Pyongyang as the heart of the revolution has been a longstanding theme in the propaganda, and North Korea is hardly the only country in the world where the capital city holds a higher standard than other places. Still, one should not mistake new subway cars or other infrastructure upgrades for signs of profound economic improvement. While new subway cars are manufactured in Pyongyang, aid organizations have continued to warn of a food deficit.

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein 

The flurry of divergent messages on North Korea’s food situation continues. While multilateral agencies have warned that this year’s food deficit might be particularly bad, news from inside North Korea tell a different story. The Daily NK reports that citizens speak of a particularly good harvest this year, despite the drought:

On the 24th, a Daily NK reporter spoke with a source in Yanggang Province, who informed us that although the Rodong Sinmun has been urging citizens and the nation on a daily basis to work hard to restore the damage that resulted from the tempestuous weather earlier in the year, so far there are no reports of lower-than-average rice harvest numbers.

An additional source in North Hamgyong Province reported the same trend in his region.

Small plot farmers have been particularly attentive to ensuring that their crops received adequate water supplies, with many using hand or motorized water pumps and water turbines for irrigation. “Some people are even saying that as a result of the careful attention paid by these farmers to protect their crops from the weather, this year’s rice harvest is looking better than average,” he said.

But it isn’t economic reforms by the state that is causing the bumper harvest, the article says. It’s hardly a shocker that people don’t trust the North Korean government too much:

However, the number of people working hard to ensure the success of the rice harvests on collective farms is dropping. This is in large part due to the fact that despite reassurances from the state that farmers will receive sizable allocations of the harvest for their own use, for the past several years this has not been the case.

After “repeated failures by the authorities to fulfill stated promises,” he asserted, farmers have concluded that it makes no difference to them personally whether the collective farms do well or not.

Read the full article:
Despite Mother Nature, a bumper year for rice harvest
Lee Sang Yong
DailyNK
11-26-2015

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)

After the severe drought this summer, North Korean authorities are actively encouraging farmers to employ water-conserving farming techniques in order to minimize the drought’s impact on the harvest.

On July 20, 2015, an article was published in the Journal of Kim Il Sung University, No. 3 that offers a variety of ways farmers can decrease water usage while increasing rice production.

The article, entitled ‘Principal Issues in the Introduction of Water-Conserving Farming Techniques,’ explains that yongyangalmo (a type of rice seedling in which two or three seeds are contained in one grain) only needs to be watered once every four to seven days, and the harvest is approximately 437kg greater per chongbo* than that of normal rice seedlings.

The article also recommended that in regions where water is especially scarce, farmers should cultivate large rice seedlings, which can shorten the rice-planting time, and use fertilizer that enhances the crop’s resistance to the cold.

“Agricultural laborers and workers need to innovatively increase the grain yield per chongbo with less water by actively implementing in all agricultural processes the water-conservation farming techniques of our-style, the superiority and productivity of which have been proven,” the article stressed.

In June 2015 the Workers’ Party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun published a similarly-themed article entitled, ‘Efforts to Overcome Severe Drought Damage.’ The article shared examples of other countries’ efforts to overcome major droughts, such as Cuba’s regulation of water consumption and Sri Lanka’s construction of wells.

North Korea’s continual emphasis on water-conservation farming techniques appears to be related to its frequent droughts and resulting food shortages.

In particular, this year North Korea was hit by a drought so severe that North Korean authorities called it the “worst drought in a century.” In the wake of that misfortune, North Korea is actively encouraging farming techniques that minimize the use of water.

Given the frequent food shortages caused by droughts, it seems North Korea will have no choice but to accelerate the development of agricultural methods that can produce similar results with less water.

* North Korean unit of measurement equivalent to roughly 9,900 m2

According to the Joong Ang Ilbo:

North Korea is making $15 million a year from deploying 1,250 doctors and nurses in 26 nations where they perform illegal medical practices such as abortions and injections of illegal substance, South Korea’s intelligence agency reported Tuesday.

Some 1,170 North Korean medical staff are working in Africa, according to lawmakers Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party and Shin Kyoung-min of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy. They were briefed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Tuesday as members of a parliamentary intelligence committee. The NIS reported that North Korean doctors are engaged in illegal medical practices with a focus on earning foreign exchange. They also sell dubious medical products.

The NIS said the North was accused of bribing local officials to keep their illegal activities going. Citing a report by a local newspaper in Tanzania published on Feb. 21, the NIS said North Korea was caught trading sexual enhancer products, or aphrodisiacs, that contained mercury 185 times higher than international standards.

Dispatching medical operatives overseas appears to be part of Pyongyang’s long-running effort to earn foreign currency. The intelligence agency also reported that North Korea, which it said was accelerating its exports of labor, is earning $230 million a year on average from 58,000 workers in 50 different countries overseas. Pyongyang is also reportedly planning to export 3,000 new workers to labor in the fields of construction, medical and IT industries.

North Koreans sent abroad also work in logging, mining, construction and agriculture.

The two lawmakers also quotes the NIS as reporting a sense of disappointment among North Koreans after Pyongyang failed to deliver on its promise to improve people’s living conditions to mark the anniversary of the 70th foundation of the Workers’ Party. The Communist state is also suffering from an acute shortage of electricity, according to a NIS report.

On Choe Ryong-hae, secretary of the Workers’ Party who has vanished from the public view for nearly a month, was sent to a rural agricultural cooperative for “revolutionary re-education,” the NIS reported, citing a classified source of information.

The agency said Choe was removed from power partly to take responsibility for a partial collapse of a power plant in Yanggang Province.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang’s flying doctors pull in $15M a year: NIS
Joong Ang Ilbo
Kang Jin-Kyu
2015-11-25

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Curtis Melvin and Andray Abrahamian have published a new report on the progress (and lack thereof) of North Korea’s Special Economic Zones. Overall, the message seems to be that things aren’t exactly proceeding smoothly. One of the main impediments is still that North Korea’s institutional environment isn’t showing signs of improving much. But not all hope is lost. Particularly on the local level, there seem to be a strong ambition to make the zones work:

Overall, although the Kim regime may be promoting special economic zones as a key piece of its economic development strategy, there is still a long way to go to make these zones successful. Certainly, the North’s strained political relations bring about serious financial and reputational challenges to attracting foreign investment; however, it is not the only impediment to success.

Inconsistent and unreliable communication about plans for the zones and a lack of strategic planning for attracting either domestic or international investment reflect limitations of the North’s domestic economic policymaking capacity. Despite these structural challenges, localized efforts are underway to try to make individual zones work. For instance, teams from Wonsan and Unjong have begun experimenting with outreach and marketing. They are also trying to create more comprehensive development plans and organizations. Around Sinuiju, there are at least two significant construction projects well underway, reflecting a desire for cross-border cooperation in that region.

The unfinished new Yalu Bridge, however, stands as a reminder that the success of most of these zones depends heavily on the DPRK’s relations with its neighbors. In particular, Wonsan and Rason eagerly await better days. Until they arrive, Rason will continue to putter along; domestic capital and visitors may have only a small impact on the Wonsan area; and smaller projects, like the newly announced Kyongwon Economic Zone, will likely remain largely undeveloped for the foreseeable future.

Read the full report here:
North Korea’s Special Economic Zones: Plans vs. Progress
11-24-2015
Andray Abrahamian and Curtis Melvin
38North

According to Yonhap:

It is important to clarify the authority and roles given to the Cabinet and companies, as giving more autonomy to workers can boost labor efficiency, according to a North Korean college newspaper on Monday.

North Korea’s Cabinet mainly handles the implementation of the North’s economic policies within the state-controlled rationing system.

Companies and workers can take the initiative and show creativity when the authority and role of the Cabinet and companies are clarified, according to an article in the newspaper issued by Kim Il Sung University, a prestigious institution named after the country’s founder.

How well the economy performs depends on how extensively businesses and workers are able to play their roles, the newspaper added.

The article came amid the growth of marketplaces, as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is trying to give autonomy to companies in the North’s special economic zone to some degree, in a bid to prop up the feeble economy.

Last week, North Korea unveiled detailed plans to upgrade its special economic zone in the border city of Rason in a bid to lure foreign investment amid an economic slowdown and a series of U.N. sanctions.

The North said that profits and other proceeds generated in the zone can be repatriated outside North Korea “without restriction,” in what is seen as investment incentives to foreign investors. It also hinted at assuring autonomous operations for firms in the zone.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea needs to split roles of Cabinet, firms: newspaper
Yonhap
2015-11-23