Wednesday, July 02, 2003
OPENING MARKETS IN NORTH KOREA:
MEANS SHORT-TERM PAIN FOR MANY
Los Angeles Times ("COMMUNIST STATE PUSHES FREE ENTERPRISE," Seoul, 06/19/03) reported that in one of its biggest experiments yet with capitalism, the DPRK has started building hundreds of market halls around the country to encourage private merchants, and has loosened rules about who may do business and what may be sold, according to sources in the ROK. The new rules were issued last month. In effect, they make official what long ago had become reality in the DPRK. The DPRK has become increasingly dependent on private commerce to feed and clothe themselves in the absence of a viable public distribution system. "Before, they were tolerating private business. Now they are encouraging it," said Cho Myong Chol, a DPRK defector who had been an economics professor at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, the capital.
MEANS SHORT-TERM PAIN FOR MANY
Kim Young Soo, a professor at Seoul's Sogang University who made a detailed study of the markets in the the DPRK, found that a wider range of goods was available but at prices out of reach for most citizens of the DPRK.
"Ironically, with the introduction of the market system, few people are starving to death, but their daily life is much harder than before," Kim said. "North Korea is undergoing an adjustment period... Today, there is no distribution system and people have to solve problems on their own."
