Archive for the ‘Political economy’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

What real estate investments in Pyongyang tells us about the North Korean economy

Tuesday, October 30th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

A few days ago, Daily NK reported that apartment prices in Pyongyang have fallen by significant proportions over the last few months. They first wrote about it in Korean last week:

평양 소식통은 26일 데일리NK와의 통화에서 “평양에서 아파트 가격이 많이 눅어(떨어)졌는데, 이상하게도 아파트 건설은 줄어들지 않고 오히려 늘고 있다”면서 “중심 구역뿐만이 아니라 낙랑구역이나 서성구역 등 외곽 지역에서도 많이 올라가고 있는데, 내가 본 것만 7개다”고 말했다.

소식통은 이어 “돈주(신흥부유층)가 돈 내고 건설해서 팔아먹는데 창전거리나 려명거리에 있는 아파트처럼 멋지게 올라가고 있다”면서 “아파트 건설은 보통 20~30명의 군인이 동원돼 건설 중이며 30층짜리 아파트도 있고 종류가 다양하다”고 덧붙였다.

이달 초 본지는 올해 6월까지 20∼30만 달러(이하 면적 230㎡)를 유지해왔던 평양의 중심지역인 중구역 및 대동강 주변 아파트 가격이 8월에 5만 달러 이상 하락한 것으로 파악됐다고 보도한 바 있다.

이처럼 아파트 가격의 폭락에도 불구하고 아파트를 건설하는 데는 신규 아파트의 경우 고가로 거래되기 때문에 투자가치가 있다고 판단하는 것으로 분석된다.

본지가 지난 4월 입수한 탑식 아파트 경제 타산서(북한식 공사 손익계산서)를 조사한 결과 40세대가 사용할 수 있는 아파트(한국의 빌라, 총 12층 기준)를 건설할 때 약 23만 달러(약 2억 4000만 원)의 수익을 내는 것으로 나타났다. (▶관련 기사 바로 가기 : 경제타산서 입수…”40세대 아파트 건설·분양시 23만달러 수익”)

또한 지난 10년간 아파트 가격이 지속 상승, 돈주들에게 많은 부를 안겨준 점도 한몫 하는 것으로 보인다. 아울러 한반도 평화 분위기 속에 향후 대북제재가 해제되면 다시 아파트 가격이 상승할 것이라는 기대 심리도 작용한 것으로 관측된다.

And in English here, yesterday:

Despite the fall in North Korean real estate prices, apartment construction has not slowed down, report sources in the country.

“The prices of apartments in Pyongyang have fallen a lot, but strangely the construction of apartments has continued and even increased,” said a Pyongyang-based source on October 26. “There’s apartment construction going on in central Pyongyang and in the city’s suburbs, like the Rakrang and Sosong districts. I’ve seen seven apartment construction sites myself.”

A separate source in Pyongyang added, “The donju (nouveau riche) are financially supporting these apartment construction projects and then selling the apartments to buyers. There are really nice ones being constructed, similar to those in Changchon Street and Ryomyong Street. Twenty to thirty soldiers are usually mobilized to build them. There are 30-story apartments and others of varying heights.”

Daily NK reported earlier this month that the price of apartments in central Pyongyang, including in Jung district and those near the Taedong River, had fallen from a high of 200-300,000 dollars in June this year to around 50,000 dollars in August.

However, local investors still appear keen to build the apartments because they can be sold for significant profits.

According to an analysis of a North Korean construction profit-and-loss statement Daily NK obtained in April, apartments that can house 40 families (around 12-stories tall; similar to South Korean “villas”) can make a profit of around US $230,000 US dollars (around 240 million South Korean won) [from rent].

The continued rise in apartment prices over the past 10 years has helped the donju accumulate a lot of wealth, which appears to be one factor in the continued construction of apartments. And as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have dissipated, there may also be the expectation among investors in the country that international sanctions will be lifted, which would again lead to a rise in apartment prices.

Full article/source:
Apartment construction remains steady despite fall in real estate prices
Moon Dong Hui
Daily NK
2018-10-30

The dynamics at play here tells us something very interesting and important about the current state of North Korea’s economic system. For all the developments and changes over the past couple of decades, and particularly under Kim Jong-un, basic functions of a regular market economy, such as formal channels for investments, through which people can see their savings grow in value (or shrink, in bad times). In North Korea, however, private investments technically remain illegal. Housing is one area where they’ve become standard practice and more or less regularized, despite the judicial murkiness of it all.

So when housing prices decline, what are people going to do, if they don’t want to keep their money laying around passively? Keep putting them into housing. After all, a lower profit is better than no profit. This dynamic can’t last forever, but as of now, the fact that investment opportunities are still relatively few may be keeping a bubble alive that already burst.

Share

Posted in Civil society, Economic reform, Political economy, Real estate, Real Estate Management Law | Comments Closed

Two Koreas start railway inspections

Sunday, October 21st, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

South and North Korea are likely to start their joint on-site inspection as early as this week for a project to modernize and re-link railways across their border, government officials said Sunday.

At high-level talks last week, the two Koreas agreed to begin field surveys of the western Gyeongui railway in late October and the Donghae railway along their east coast in November.

“The Koreas are known to be discussing ways to conduct the inspection (on the North section) of the Gyeongui line starting late this week,” a government official said.

“The schedule is flexible, depending on consultations between the government and the United Nations Command (UNC) over the passage of the Military Demarcation Line,” he added.

In August, the Koreas failed to carry out a joint railway field survey as the U.S.-led UNC did not approve the plan, citing “procedural” problems, a move widely seen as U.S. objection to the inter-Korean railway project on the basis that it might hamper sanctions.

“As far as I’m concerned, Seoul’s consultations with Pyongyang as well as the UNC are smoothly under way,” the official said.

If launched, the joint inspection will involve the test operation of a train on the railway linking Seoul to the North’s northwestern city of Sinuiju.

After that, the Koreas will check the eastern railway on the North’s side that connects Mout Kumgang to its northeastern North Hamgyong province.

South and North Korea are looking to hold a ground-breaking ceremony for work on the rail and road systems along the eastern and western regions either in late November or early December.

Meanwhile, the two Koreas plan to hold working-level talks starting this week to implement agreements of the inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang last month.

Full article/source:
Koreas to start joint inspection of western railway as early as this week
Yonhap News
2018-10-21

Share

Tags:,
Posted in Foreign direct investment, Inter-Korean summit, International trade, Ministry of Railways, Political economy, Railways, Transportation | Comments Closed

Moon’s Europe trip

Tuesday, October 16th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

President Moon went to Europe. In France, he argued that sanctions against North Korea should be eased. Yonhap:

Moon agreed with the need to maintain pressure on the North until it denuclearizes, but said such pressure could be or should be eased to encourage the impoverished North.

“I believe the international community needs to provide assurances that North Korea has made the right choice to denuclearize and encourage North Korea to speed up the process,” the South Korean president told the joint press conference.

Moon’s remarks come amid an apparent tug of war between the United States and North Korea over when the North should be entitled to rewards for giving up its nuclear ambition.

Pyongyang is said to be demanding timely rewards for what it claims to be irreversible denuclearization steps it has already taken while Washington is insisting on maximum sanctions and pressure until the impoverished nation fully denuclearizes.

In his third bilateral summit with Moon, held in Pyongyang last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un offered to take additional denuclearization steps, including the dismantlement of the country’s only nuclear test site, in presence of international experts for verification.

“Chairman Kim Jong-un has said he is willing to not only halt the country’s nuclear and missile tests and also dismantle its production facilities, but also dismantle all nuclear weapons and nuclear materials it currently possesses if the United States takes corresponding measures,” the South Korean president told Macron in their meeting, according to Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan.

Full article/source:
Moon says France, U.N. can speed up N. Korea’s denuclearization by easing sanctions
Yonhap News
2018-10-16

Share

Tags:
Posted in International trade, Political economy, South Korea, UN | Comments Closed

N Korea condemns international sanctions, again

Tuesday, October 16th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Yonhap summarizes KCNA:

In a commentary by an individual writer, the Korean Central News Agency said that the U.S. should take corresponding steps in response to Pyongyang’s major conciliatory action in the past few months.

“If the U.S. intends to be stubborn in its sanctions, which means to continue to pursue hostile policy, is the Singapore Joint Statement which promised to end the extreme hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. and to open up new future of any worth and what did the U.S. president mean by ‘big progress’ which he bragged,” the commentary said in English.

“Quite long period has passed since the DPRK stopped nuclear tests and inter-continental ballistic rocket launches and it is, therefore, natural for sanctions measures taken on that pretexts to disappear accordingly,” it added.

DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The commentary emphasized that China and Russia have also called for denuclearization and the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula in a “phased” and “simultaneous” way, meaning each country involved should take corresponding measures every step of the way.

It even called into question the real intention behind Washington’s firm stance on sanctions.

“It is an undeniable reality that denuclearization and sanctions are misused as tools for meeting party interests and strategies of the political forces within the U.S., not to solve bottleneck problems between the DPRK and the U.S. to even a certain extent,” it said.

Its accusatory tone comes as the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea are pushing to hold their second summit meeting “at the earliest possible date,” resuming diplomacy after months of stalemate since their first-ever meeting in Singapore in June.

During the June summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promised to work toward the “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in return for “new” relations with the U.S.

The North has demanded the U.S. take “corresponding” measures for what it claims to be substantive and practical denuclearization steps, including a moratorium on missile and nuclear tests and dismantling of a major nuclear test site. Easing sanctions and declaring an end to Korean War have been cited as possible concessions.

Full article/source:
N. Korea demands lifting of sanctions, calls them hostile policy against Pyongyang
Yonhap News
2018-10-16

Share

Tags:
Posted in International trade, Political economy, UN | Comments Closed

North Korea’s economic growth – from Pyongyang’s perspective

Monday, October 15th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Has North Korea’s economy been growing under sanctions? That’s what an economist in Pyongyang claims. In a recent interview with Kyodo (published here by Japan Times), Ri Gi Song at Pyongyang’s Institute of Economics at the Academy of Social Sciences, claimed that North Korea’s GDP per capita grew by 3.7 percent in 2017, a year during which the country was virtually banned from selling its most crucial export goods, and faced very harsh conditions for importing crucial resources such as oil and fuel. When factoring in population growth, the GDP-growth-figure diminishes somewhat to 3.2% (see below), but it’s still firmly in the same range.

Strange as it may sound, it is possible to imagine that North Korea’s economy wouldn’t contract severely during a year of sanctions. GDP growth alone is a poor way of measuring long-run, sustained economic growth and progress. While it may sound counter-intuitive, the sanctions, while depressing the economy in certain ways, may have boosted it through other mechanisms. The ban on coal imports from North Korea, for example, may well have boosted certain industries, as this blog has covered in the past. Because exports have dwindled drastically, the price at which North Korean coal can sell – domestically as well as internationally – gets much, much lower than when it could be sold in greater quantities on a somewhat competitive market. So with lower prices for factors of production, industry could certainly experience growth in the short-run. But this would only be a temporary and meaningless boost, since the losses from unsold goods abroad would be much greater.

In other words, Ri may be partially right, but numbers are also likely inflated for political reasons. Here’s an excerpt from the interview, annotated with comments:

North Korea’s economy grew 3.7 percent in 2017, a professor of a think tank in Pyongyang said in brushing aside the view that the country has faced an economic contraction against a backdrop of international sanctions.

Even though North Korean economic data has become somewhat more public and plentiful in the past few years, there are still undeniable political imperatives in publishing data that makes the country appear resilient in the face of sanctions. After all, if sanctions aren’t “working” (whatever that may mean), what’s the point in keeping them? That, of course, doesn’t mean that such figures are accurate, wholly or partially.

Ri Gi Song, a professor of the Institute of Economics at the Academy of Social Sciences, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News that North Korea has achieved economic expansion without depending on other nations.

Well, he would say that, since that is how Juche is spoken. That doesn’t mean it comes from a place of literal belief; it’s simply what you say if you’re a North Korean economist speaking from your official position, and shouldn’t be read as an expression of delusion or the like.

Ri said gross domestic product totaled $30.70 billion in 2017, up from $29.60 billion in 2016. It is very rare for North Korea to disclose its GDP and also the first time that the country’s GDP data in the past two years have been unveiled.

But it is impossible to verify the accuracy of the figures, as the professor did not make public other economic indicators such as consumer spending, investment and inflation rate.

Although a report released by South Korea’s central bank showed in July that the North’s economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2017 from the previous year, Ri shrugged it off, saying Seoul’s calculation is “only an estimation.”

Ri is right that South Korea’s figures are only estimates, albeit careful ones based on models developed and refined (presumably) through years of experience. But the thing is, Ri’s official North Korean figures, too, are only an estimate. Even in the best of situations, no GDP-figure is exactly certain and precise. To calculate as vast of an “object” as a country’s economy, some assumptions inevitably have to be made. One of them is that various forms of reporting is generally accurate.

In the case of North Korea, however, this problem is incomparably worse than in open, democratic free market-economies. Let’s assume for a moment that the North Korean government genuinely is eager and willing to generate real, trustworthy and truthful economic statistics, which in many ways does seem to be the case. Even so, how do you generate accurate accounts reporting in an environment when the going principle for a long time has been that planning targets must be met regardless of actual conditions? And with so many different forms and models of enterprise in action throughout the country, seemingly with little but perhaps improving consistency across the board, how would it be reasonable to expect the North Korean government to be able to calculate a reasonable GDP-figure? That’s not even getting started on the investments-portion, a crucial variable to determine growth. Private investments into partially private enterprises is still technically illegal in North Korea, but there are many signs to suggest that it’s taking place on an increasingly substantive scale.

So, even if the North Korean government’s statistical authorities have all the right intentions, I don’t envy their working conditions one bit.

He said North Korea’s population grew to 25,287,000 last year from 25,159,000 in 2016. Based on the figures, the country’s per capita GDP stood at $1,214 last year, equivalent to that of Myanmar.

This means that the actual growth rate claimed by Ri, factoring in population growth, is 3.2%. This, however, still isn’t the “real” growth rate. To get those numbers, we’d need to factor in inflation, and no reliable numbers are available to let us do that. But on the face of it, judging by the price trends for foreign currency and rice through 2016–2017, inflation wasn’t visibly large or out of the ordinary. Even so, we simply don’t know.

In an attempt to overcome the negative impact of international economic sanctions, North Korea has “developed various technologies” under the spirit of “self-reliance,” Ri said, adding the nation has implemented measures to save the utilization of crude oil, for example.

This is certainly true to an extent. Just look at the masses of North Koreans purchasing solar panels for electricity rather than relying on scantly available government supplies of power. And as mentioned above, there is some sense in this argument, if interpreted in a slightly broader manner, that North Korea’s economy may have experienced some gains in efficiency from sanctions, as people are forced to find new, creative ways to get around increasingly tricky conditions. And industry may have gotten a boost from lower energy prices, as may other consumption, since citizens can theoretically spend more on other items if energy prices fall.

Still, this boost would only be marginal, and temporary at best. It certainly wouldn’t create 3.2 percent growth rates, although it might have contributed.

[…]

Ri acknowledged that North Korea has suffered food shortages, but emphasized that the heavy and light industries as well as the chemical sector have been growing and electric power conditions have been improving.

Amid a thaw in inter-Korean relations, Ri expressed hope for economic cooperation with the South.

Full article:
North Korea’s economy grew 3.7% in 2017, Pyongyang professor estimates
Japan Times/Kyodo
2018-10-13

At the end of the day, as Andray Abrahamian points out, neither North nor South Korea publishes their methodology for calculating North Korea’s growth rates, so all we can do is speculate about the assumptions that go into the models.

Share

Tags:,
Posted in GDP statistics, Political economy, RoK Ministry of Unification, Statistics | Comments Closed

Power supply in North Korea in the age of markets

Wednesday, September 26th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

A couple of days ago, Daily NK ran an interesting interview with a Pyongsong resident about the conditions of electricity supply in the increasingly market-based North Korean system. Pyongsong, readers may recall, is a crucial logistics hub in North Korea’s market system. People can travel there for trading activities without having to go through the often laborious process of getting a travel permit to Pyongyang, while still reaping the benefits of Pyongyang’s large demand and comparatively wealthy consumers. It sits right on the way to Pyongyang from Sinuiju, North Korea’s main connecting city for trade with China. In 2009, in one of Kim Jong-il’s more blatant anti-market measures, a large wholesale market in Pyongsong was closed down. Several major markets, however, operate in the city and it remains a significant hub for market trade.

The Daily NK interview tells us several interesting things about the way electricity supply functions in North Korea today. Below are a few clips, with added annotation.

The foundation for North Korea’s policy on electricity clearly states that electricity is the driving force behind the people’s economy and it needs to be developed ahead of other sectors so that industry and agriculture can not only exercise their capabilities, but also strengthen national defense.

In theory, electricity should be supplied to state-owned enterprises and other productive units of the central plan according to their needs, basically for free. This creates massively distorted incentives – soft budget constraints, if you will – since enterprises have no reason not to overestimate and over-use electricity. In practice, today, however, with North Korea’s lagging electricity production, in combination with increasing autonomy for state enterprises, it seems that many or most have to pay for whatever electricity they use in the production process.

According to North Korean defectors, some hydroelectric power plants generate power, but most of the-small to-medium sized plants are unable to produce power because the facilities are too old.

It is said that Pyongyang’s power situation has improved but a resident of Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province with whom Daily NK recently met in China said that the power situation in provincial cities remains unsatisfactory.

As is often the case, the situation, like Daily NK points out, is far better in Pyongyang. There, electricity supply appears to have increased as sanctions on coal exports bite, since coal prices have gone down enough for power plants to use more of it.

Daily NK (DNK): Compared to a month or two ago, has the power situation improved?

Pyongsong Resident (PR): Until 2015, electricity was supplied in the evening for two to three hours per day but it was gradually cut off. Since 2017, electricity is only supplied on holidays or when there’s an important news report.

The timing mentioned here is interesting, since there’s little else to suggest that North Korea’s economic situation drastically declined in any significant way specifically in 2015. Rather, it may be a question of increased competition and a higher opportunity cost of supplying residents with electricity essentially free of charge. As enterprises are increasingly free to control their own operations, and source production inputs more freely from institutions such as power plants, the opportunity cost for the state (loosely used here) in providing ordinary residents with electricity increases increases.

[…]

DNK: Can you buy electricity?

PR: If there’s an important occasion like a wedding, people can ask the distribution department and pay them to use electricity. Until a few years ago, you had to have a personal connection or pay a bribe to use electricity, but these days you can pay 50,000 won and they will supply the electricity at the time you want. In some areas, there’s only one power supply line, so if one household buys electricity, other neighbours are happy because they get to use the electricity for free. The authorities are using the national electricity infrastructure to line their own pockets.

A well-known pattern from other parts of the North Korean economy: what starts out as mere corruption soon turns into an institutionalized mechanism in the system, more or less.

DNK: How do party cadres use electricity?

PR: State factory cadres, state security officials and police plug a separate power line into state enterprises and secretly send electricity to their own homes.

Despite the vast changes over the past few years in how the North Korean economy operates, it’s still highly advantageous for several reasons to be a party member and/or state official. Often, not least to gain favors within the market economy.

Since the central government no longer supplies electricity, people are using solar power for television and other leisure activities. About 80-90% of households have already installed their own solar panels. A panel costs US $30 to 80 dollars depending on the size.

The 80–90% figure may not be numerically accurate,  but the vast increase of solar panel use in North Korea over the past few years is well documented, not least by foreign travelers. In any case, though solar panels may not be the most technologically efficient or cheap way to generate power for individual household use, in the case of North Korea, it’s an interesting example of how behavior to cope with shortages lead to more viable, sustainable supply methods, as the state’s electricity supply was usually unreliable and spotty at best for the past few decades.

Full article here:
Pyongsong resident sheds light on persistent regional power supply issues
Mun Dong Hui
Daily NK
2018-09-24

Share

Tags:, ,
Posted in Civil society, Economic reform, Political economy | Comments Closed

The economic side of the Moon-Kim summit

Friday, September 21st, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The economic aspect has been continuously front-and-center throughout the Moon-Kim summit in Pyongyang (September 19–20). From a diplomatic standpoint, this is not all that surprising. Moon and Kim are pursuing what appears to be a rather classical Sunshine 2.0 pattern, with roughly the same contents as the predecessor. As Yonhap reports:

Earlier in the day, the leaders of South and North Korea agreed to work together for balanced economic development on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to break ground on a joint project to connect railways and roads across their border this year and vowed diverse cooperative projects to deepen their friendly ties and foster a reconciliatory mood.

The agreements were reached during summit talks held in Pyongyang between Moon and Kim.

“We will prepare for (inter-Korean economic cooperation) in a calm and orderly manner,” Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said in a meeting with reporters here.

“But inter-Korean economic projects can gather speed if circumstances improve,” he said.

The minister said any inter-Korean economic projects should need support from the international community, and there are still many things to be done in advance.

The latest agreement came months after the leaders reached a deal during their April summit to modernize and eventually connect rail and road systems across their divided border.

Field surveys have been carried out to examine the state of some sections of the North’s rail and road networks, but the process has not moved fast enough, apparently due to stringent sanctions imposed on the North for its nuclear program.

Railways and infrastructure are both less politically touchy than outright trade, and potentially mutually beneficial, even though the south will carry the economic burden:

“The South and the North agreed to explore practical measures aimed at increasing exchange and cooperation and seeking balanced development,” read a joint statement they signed after the summit.

“The two agreed to hold a ground-breaking ceremony this year for connecting railways and roads running along their eastern and western coasts,” it also stated.

The decision came months after the leaders reached a deal during their April summit to modernize and eventually connect rail and road systems across their divided border. The Seoul government has set aside nearly 300 billion won for next year to carry out those projects.

Field surveys have been carried out to examine the state of some sections of the North’s rail and road networks, but the process has not been fast enough, apparently because of global sanctions on the North.

The second point of the Pyongyang Declaration promises more economic cooperation for “balanced” growth, and vows to reopen projects such as the Kumgangsan tourism zone, and the Kaesong Industrial Park, according to Moon, “when conditions allow“. Here’s an English-language full-text version of the declaration. A particularly interesting but understudied point is 2.3, on ecological cooperation.

Kim Jong-un’s forestry interest has been a recurring theme throughout his tenure, and as this blog has covered, he’s spoken about the problems associated with excessive tree-felling – the root cause of which is North Korea’s planning failures of the 1990s – in more honest terms than his father did. At the very least, there’s been strong hints of both pragmatism and understanding of North Korea’s structural problems in the way that Kim has talked about the forestry issue (and many others too for that matter). Indeed, the Korea Forest Service chief accompanied Moon to Pyongyang, and he hopes to get to work soon following the summit:

“Forests surrounding populous urban areas were heavily destroyed, but forests in less populated regions were well-preserved,” Kim Jae-hyun said in a meeting with reporters at a government complex in Daejeon. “I saw enough hope.”

He was speaking after accompanying South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s visit to North Korea from Tuesday to Thursday.

As the first step, Kim said the Korea Forest Service will explore ways to create tree nurseries in much-destroyed regions.

“The North Korean side wants large-scale tree nurseries, but it would be more practical to start with small nurseries in regions suffering from deforestation the most,” he said.

In regard to disease and insect control efforts, the official said the use of machinery could be limited as the North is under U.N. sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests, while pesticides are allowed.

“I think (the disease and insect control measures) should start immediately to build trust between the two Koreas,” he said.

The forest expert said his North Korea visit as part of the official entourage showed Moon’s “willingness” to pursue inter-Korean cooperation in the forest sector.

“Looking down from an airplane along the western coastline, North Korea’s forests were very impressive,” Kim said. “There were few trees on hills near Pyongyang, while trees were well-maintained on the way from Sunan Airport to Baekhwawon guesthouse.”

Mountains near Yalu River on the North Korean border with China were denuded, but Mount Paekdu showed off all colors of beautiful trees, he said.

Moon and Kim aren’t the only ones who have talked about economic cooperation. The mayor for Busan, South Korea’s second most populated city, for example, has announced projects that his city will spearhead. Yonhap again:

Busan’s envisioned projects, unveiled in time for President Moon Jae-in’s historic visit to North Korea, call for boosting the city’s cooperation with the North in the fields of fisheries trade and processing, modernization of fishing vessels and equipment, shipbuilding, exhibitions and conventions and smart city technology, the city said.

The city will push to invite North Korean filmmakers and actors to the Busan International Film Festival and hold an inter-Korean film festival.

Nikkei Asian Review also reports that the Moon government has put pressure on Samsung and its head, Lee Jae-yong, to present a large-scale investment plan for North Korea. Samsung has manufactured TV:s in North Korea before, but this time around, the company hasn’t appeared as eager as its other chaebol-counterparts to draft up implementable blueprints for investments up north. Politically, it makes sense. Samsung’s PR hasn’t exactly been superb as of late, with the arrest and later release from prison of its CEO relating to corruption charges tied to the Choi Soon-sil/Park Geun-hye-scandal.

South Korea’s main steelmaker Posco is also hoping for opportunities following the summit:

The executive was part of the business delegation that accompanied President Moon Jae-in on his trip to North Korea earlier this week. Choi and other businessmen discussed various inter-Korean economic cooperation projects that can be pursued going forward if conditions are right.

“It will be a big opportunity not only for POSCO but for the steel industry as a whole,” Choi said. “I think POSCO will be able to find chances for growth.”

The company recently created a new task force to prepare for potential business opportunities in North Korea. POSCO Daewoo, POSCO Engineering & Construction Co. and POSCO Chemtech Co. are participating in the task force.

The steelmaker said it wants to play a key role in railroad and other infrastructure projects in line with the changes in the geopolitical environment in Northeast Asia.

My five cents on what all this entails for the North Korean economy:

Of course, as of yet, nothing. Most of the plans and visions are routinely accompanied by the caveat “when conditions allow”. The infrastructure plans may be able to go ahead even with sanctions in place, at least the rhetoric from the Moon administration, and the timetable for breaking ground on the railway connections before this year is over, seems to suggest so. I’m no expert on the judicial side of the sanctions, but it’s hard to imagine that this will be fully uncontroversial from that standpoint.

In any case, North Korea is in dire need of infrastructure improvements and if they are extensive enough, they should hopefully not just connect South and North Korea with Russia and China for cheaper freight, but also make domestic goods transportation simpler and more efficient, with positive impacts for the markets and private manufacturing in the country.

On re-opening Kaesong, things are a bit more complicated. In its nature, Kaesong is a manufacturing zone mostly cut off from the rest of North Korea. Sure, the incomes of the workers did enter the North Korean economy, and arguably, the fact that South Korean consumer goods could to some extent enter North Korean markets through Kaesong spurred competition for more high-quality goods on the North Korean market as well. But Kaesong is hardly the only, and perhaps not even the main route through which such products enter the country. These are also pretty weak arguments when you look at the entire economic picture.

The problem with Kaesong isn’t so much what it was/is/will be, but the missed opportunities. The hope with special economic zones tends to be that institutional frameworks that are tried there first can later spill over into the rest of the country. In the case of North Korea, the arrangement made pretty sure that that didn’t happen, at least from what we can tell. Had inputs been sourced from North Korea, that could also have spurred wider economic growth, at least in some regions. In theory, there are lots of opportunities for synergy and cooperation between South Korean companies and smaller North Korean ones, not just the state. If the goal is economic development in North Korea more broadly, and not just economic profit on the southern side and incomes for the north, there are lots of models that carry far greater potential.

Share

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Foreign direct investment, International trade, Political economy, South Korea | Comments Closed

Explaining North Korea’s exchange rate stability: it’s all about the companies

Thursday, September 13th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein and Peter Ward 

The stability of the market exchange rate for won-to-US dollars has been one of the most puzzling features of the economy over the past few years, and particularly so during the so-called period of “maximum pressure” and heavy sanctions by the international community. The market exchange has not once moved out of its ordinary – also remarkably stabile – territory over the past few years, as the following graph shows with clarity:

Won for USD-rates on the markets, 2009–September 2018. Data source: Daily NK. Graph: NK Econ Watch.

Thus far, to my knowledge, there have been two main, potential explanations:

(1) Maximum pressure is not having a meaningful impact on the North Korean economy as a whole. Even though it can’t export coal, minerals or textiles under current sanctions, its main sources for foreign currency revenue, the sanctions aren’t being enforced strictly enough to impact the economy as a whole, and foreign currency keeps flowing into the economy.

This explanation is pretty easy to dismiss offhand, since we know with more or less certainty that North Korea’s exports of these goods have plunged as Chinese sanctions enforcement has been fairly strict since the late summer/early fall of last year, even though it’s waxed and waned as it always does.

(2) The second explanation, most notably put forward by Bill Brown, is that Pyongyang is much better at monetary policy management than they’re given credit for. Chiefly (but not solely) through decreasing the amount of won in circulation, by giving state-owned enterprises (SOEs) smaller loans and credits in won, the government is able to keep the exchange rate stabile.

Speaking with my friend and colleague Peter Ward, a researcher of North Korean economic policy under Kim Jong-un and avid reader of North Korean economics journals, he explained a third possibility, partially in line with the latter hypothesis posed above. Ward visited North Korea twice in the past year, and was able to confirm many of the economic policy developments he had first detected in the literature from Pyongyang.

In short, Ward’s explanation is as follows: the main holders and users of foreign exchange in North Korea are not individual citizens, but state-owned enterprises, which legally (since 2013) use foreign exchange in transactions amongst themselves. The quantities of foreign exchange held by SOEs make them, and not the foreign currency markets that individual citizens access and use, the main determinant of the market exchange rate for foreign currency. Therefore, most of the foreign currency in circulation has been there for several years, not entering or exiting monetary circulation.

I asked Ward to share some of his thoughts with the readers of North Korean Economy Watch. Below is a brief Q&A of sorts.

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein (BKS): first, when did this practice of SOEs trading in foreign currency become common and legally permissive?

Peter Ward (PW): probably around early 2013. This is when the “policy to make domestic production and exports one” came into force. The idea is to align domestic input prices for manufacturing, and consumer goods prices, with prevailing prices on international markets. This is literally what North Korean economics literature says that they aim to do, despite ostensibly being a socialist system in theory.

BKS: How is the FX-market price in North Korea determined? And where do the FX-market for SOEs and that for private citizens intersect?

PW: We don’t know, but one could imagine that there are major foreign exchange markets in North Korea – regional markets, both markets on the ground, so to speak, and between enterprises within regions. How does the center know the prevailing price? The regional price department of the regional People’s Committee price office and market management office (they may either be separate or the same) probably simply calls the local People’s Committee, who supposedly gathers this information from the local market management offices. At any rate, there’s reporting of the prevailing local exchange rate throughout the system.

Major enterprises will also know how much their inputs costs in foreign exchange, and a sense of how much their products would sell for on the world market. In that way, they’re able to assess the costs of their inputs in the world market (or at least China), and know how much they need to charge to make a profit or break even.

The market for individual citizens and SOEs intersect at several levels. SOEs likely source much of their inputs from wholesale markets, and from domestic private traders. They also obtain some of their foreign exchange from loans from private individuals. Private citizens can legally lend money to SOEs, but investments in SOEs by private citizens also happen, though they’re technically not legal, and both these investments and loans probably happen quite often in foreign exchange.

So the market price equilibrium happens through all these conduits, and as on any market, it is determined by countless instances of bargaining between traders, SOEs, and to a proportionally smaller extent, private citizens.

BKS: so where is the FX coming from, to begin with?

PW: if most inter-enterprise contracts and transactions are denominated in foreign currency, they’d be insulated from any sudden, exogenous trade shocks, such as sanctions. They’re still trading amongst themselves with whatever FX-holdings they have. For all intents and purposes, foreign currency inside North Korea is the principal legal tender – that’s what’s likely used for all major transactions inside the country, so exogenous shocks such as sanctions, from the outside, don’t necessarily impact the market price for foreign currency inside the country.

BKS: Is it likely, in your view and judging from your observations in North Korea, that the government maintains a price ceiling on the market exchange rate?

PW: Yes, it is. The government maintains price ceilings on a range of commodities, at least that’s what people inside the country say. They probably have an informal peg to the RMB, since China is their principal trade partner. It looks like it, but we don’t know for sure if they do. One possibility is that have significant cash reserves of RMB…

BKS: is it possible that China is simply helping North Korea keep the won stabile, by simply funneling RMB in?

PW: that’s certainly a possibility. The North Korean government keep a very close eye on the exchange rate, both in terms of physical cash in circulation and deposits in bank accounts, which SOEs have – both domestic and foreign currency bank accounts. They’ll keep a tight control over domestic currency-denominated loans to SOEs – that’s certainly one way of doing it. State banks will probably be encouraged to denominate such loans in foreign currency.

The government can also keep a pretty tight rope around money in circulation, since enterprises now have their own individual accounting system. The central government isn’t constantly borrowing money from the central bank to pump into SOEs, so the amount of money created by the central bank to lend to SOEs has gone down a lot.

That, at least partially, explains how the government manages to keep domestic currency circulation down. It doesn’t look like they’re printing much money overall, I saw bills from the pre-2009 currency re-denomination being used as late as July this year. And the highest denomination of North Korean won in circulation is the 5,000 won note, which has a market value of around 60 US cents, hardly appropriate for anything more groceries.

Share

Posted in Banking, Debt, DPRK organizations, DPRK Policies, Economic reform, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Foreign direct investment, Political economy | Comments Closed

Electricity supply in Pyongyang keeps getting better as sanctions drag on

Wednesday, September 5th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

As North Korea’s economically crucial minerals exports are massively down (coal exports by over 70% in 2017 as compared with 2013, for example), some in the country see positive side effects. With coal not being exported, it is instead sent to the part of the country with the highest purchasing power after the previous exports recipients: Pyongyang, as the following article in Daily NK notes (as of now only in Korean, I believe). Electricity supply, indoor heating and warm water supply have all reportedly improved, at least in parts of the city, as a consequence.

This illustrates a crucial point on sanctions. They don’t hit all North Koreans equally, and whatever one may think of the efficiency and political justification of sanctions, the northeastern coal-producing regions are undoubtedly harder hit than the capital city. Daily NK:

최근 북중 접경지역으로 나온 평양의 한 주민은 5일 데일리NK와의 통화에서 “우리가(북한이) 여태까지 중국에 석탄을 수출하다보니 (화력)발전소를 제대로 못 돌렸었다”며 “하지만 이젠 동평양 화력발전소하고 평양(평천) 화력발전소에서 전기를 꽝꽝 만들어 평양으로 보내고 있다”고 전했다.

대한무역투자진흥공사(KOTRA)에 따르면 2017년 북한 광물 수출액은 대북제재가 본격적으로 시작되기 전인 2013년에 비해 64.7% 감소한 것으로 나타났다. 같은 기간 무연탄은 70.8% 감소한 것으로 조사됐다.

또한, 통계청에 따르면 북한의 화력발전 발전량은 2013년 이후 82억kWh에서 2016년 111억kWh로 37.9% 늘어난 것으로 나타났다. 2017년 북한 발전량에 대한 정확한 통계가 조사되지 않았지만 전반적인 발전량 상승 추이로 볼 때 2017년 북한 화력발전소 발전량도 상승했을 것으로 예측된다.

석탄의 내수용 전환과 전력 사정 개선은 난방 및 온수공급에도 영향을 미친 것으로 보인다.

평양의 대다수 가구는 열병합발전에 의한 난방으로 설계됐지만, 그동안 화력발전소들이 제대로 가동되지 않아 난방 문제는 항상 골칫거리였다. 그러나 최근 발전소 사정이 나아지면서 일부 세대에 난방이 공급되고 있는 것이다.

소식통은 “려명거리 같은 최근에 지어진 집들은 발전소 사정이 좀 나아져 온수 난방이 어느 정도 돌아가고 있다”고 말했다.

Full article:

Pyongyang resident: as sanctions stop coal exports, the electricity situation is improving [평양 주민 “석탄 수출길 막혔는데 전력 사정은 좋아져”]
Moon Dong-hui
Daily NK
2018-09-05

Share

Tags:,
Posted in China, Coal, Economic reform, Electricity, Energy, International trade, Political economy | Comments Closed

Red Cross warns of heatwave threatening North Korea’s food production

Friday, August 10th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Full press release:

Beijing/Geneva, 10 August 2018 – A heatwave in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will have serious health consequences for children and elderly people unless urgent action is taken.

There has been no rainfall in DPRK since early July and temperatures are averaging 39 degrees C (102.2 degrees F) across the country. The next rain is expected in mid-August. Any threat to food security will have a serious effect on an already vulnerable and stressed population – a similar dry spell in 2017 caused a 7.2 per cent drop in food production at a vital point of the harvest cycle.

Joseph Muyambo, Programme Manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Pyongyang, said: “This is not yet classified as a drought, but rice, maize and other crops are already withering in the fields, with potentially catastrophic effects for the people of DPRK.

“We cannot and must not let this situation become a full-blown food security crisis. We know that previous serious dry spells have disrupted the food supply to a point where it has caused serious health problems and malnutrition across the country.

“It’s children aged under 5 who will suffer the most. High levels of malnutrition can cause impaired physical and cognitive growth, and this is completely unacceptable. The lives of elderly people and those already suffering from illnesses are also at risk during this heatwave.”

Today, IFRC released 213,474 Swiss francs from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to help the DPRK Red Cross to support more than 13,700 of the most vulnerable people at risk from the heatwave.

The Red Cross has deployed emergency response teams and 20 water pumps to irrigate fields in the hardest-hit areas, while staff and volunteers are helping to raise awareness of the signs, symptoms and treatment of heat-related illnesses.

Even before the current crisis, more than 10 million people – 40 per cent of DPRK’s population – needed humanitarian assistance. This worrying situation has been exacerbated by the impact of international sanctions on DPRK, which have made it difficult for aid and supplies to get into the country and to reach people who desperately need support.

The press statement can be found here, on the IFRC website.

International bodies have previously warned of looming food shortages and poor harvests in North Korea, only to later see crop yields come out larger than expected. Let’s hope that’s the case this time as well. It’s also worth remembering that it’s not bad weather per se that threatens North Korean food production, but poor institutions and bad agricultural policies that lay at the core of the problem.

Share

Tags:,
Posted in Agriculture, International Aid, Political economy, Statistics | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »