North Korea’s economic policy as a duet with control and relaxation: dynamics arising from the development of public markets since the North Korean famines in the 1990s

ABSTRACT

This study is to analyse the changing economic policies of the North Korean government with focus on public markets (Gongseol Sijang) and it covers 20 years from the Kim Jong-il period to the current Kim Jong-un regime. First, as of 2015, public markets in Pyongyang occupy 26 areas from farming districts to vacant lots in the city centre. Second, the North Korean government began to establish farmer’s markets (Nongmin Sijang) in the suburbs of Pyongyang in the 1960s. Songshin Market was the representative farmer’s market. The North Korean government transformed a Songshin Market into a public market in the early 1990s, as a demonstrative case of a public market programme. During the same decade, in the midst of North Korean famine, Songshin Market was expanded and applied to the central area of Pyongyang. Notably, the designs and facilities of the public markets in the central areas have been more modernized and enlarged than in suburban areas because they were built relatively later than those in the suburbs. Third, the central area in Pyongyang was marked as a residential district for high-ranking officers and the rich. Accordingly, the public markets stationed here appeared to be more modernized with a wide variety of products including an abundance of high-end products, due to concentrated buyers with high economic standards. This means that a layering process by economic standards had been proceeding in North Korea. Fourth, government authorities have implemented the policy to expand the city outwards into the suburbs for the expansion of Pyongyang. As a critical means to expand the city, it has also established the public markets near newly constructed apartment complexes in the suburbs of the city. Namely, the construction of the public markets has catalysed the proceeding reconstruction of the city. Regarding the development of these markets, it can be summarized that the North Korean government has conducted gradual economic policies to increase the reform by utilizing the succession of markets in a way with stepwise expansion from dot, line to face in the process of repetitive control and relaxation polices rather than the repetitive or short execution of repression or control.

KEYWORDS:

• North Korea
• Pyongyang: economic policy
• market
• Kim Jong-un

Notes

1. Donju is one of the keywords to understand North Korea’s economy. As a new illegally regarded capitalist class adhering to the authorities, it comprises a component of the economy. From 1959 to the 1980s, ethnic Koreans in Japan formed the class with the goal to return to North Korea. After the Arduous March, relatives in charge of Sino-North Korea trades and ethnic Chinese in North Korea were added to the class. Since the 2000s, the Donju’s money has continuously grown and been invested into industrial developments including the construction of apartment. In this sense, as the new emerging class, it can be considered that Donju supplies everything from small corporate bonds to large-scale capital for industrial developments. In the Kim Jong-un era, Donju is strongly influential when it comes to the economic policy of the country.

2. Songshin Market, the biggest, started as a farmer’s market established with magnitude 3000 pyong (9917 m²) under the bridge of Sadong district. At first, farmers in the vicinity of Pyongyang city used this market, but it became the hot spot later for black market traders, sellers in the local district and swindlers, utilizing the advantages that this market was located at the last bus stop (Songshin-railroad for Mankyeongdae, last stop for the trolley), train station which was away from the central district of Pyongyang where the control of security officers was loose. That is why it was said that anybody looking for unusual things or people should go find them at Songshin Market, which was well known to people of local districts as well as to people from Pyongyang. For more information, see Yoon (1995, pp. 70–71).