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              Report: Markets Expand in N. Korea Despite Crackdown

   by William Kim

   Markets in North Korea have expanded in most cities over the past 10
   years, a possible indication that authorities are losing their grip on
   the country's economy, a new report by a U.S. think tank says.

   As the communist country's centralized economy and food distribution
   system have become increasingly dismantled since the great famine of
   the late 1990s, markets in various forms and sizes have sprung up
   across the country.

   Markets first served as a rare means of getting food, but grew to be a
   venue for a profit-making enterprise. Over time, many markets have been
   formalized and integrated into the public finance system through taxes
   and administrative permits, according to the report by the Johns
   Hopkins U.S.-Korea Institute.

   The report highlighted findings from a study that examined the trend of
   markets in major North Korean cities, including the capital, Pyongyang,
   by analyzing information from various sources, including interviews
   with defectors and satellite imagery of the cities between 2008 and
   2014.

   "Most markets in North Korea have either grown or remained at a
   virtually unchanged level in recent years," the report concluded.

   In Sinuiju, a northwestern city bordering China, total market space
   grew by 114 percent between 2003 and 2014. Other cities experienced
   more moderate increases. In Kaesong, home to an inter-Korean industrial
   complex, aggregate market size grew by approximately 16 percent between
   2004 and 2013.

   Growth amid crackdown

   The analysts said the findings suggested the North Korean government's
   efforts to suppress markets were inadequate.

   "Market trade is very difficult to get rid of, even when the government
   wants to," Benjamin Silberstein, who authored the report, said at an
   event in Washington this week. Silberstein is a nonresident fellow at
   the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in
   Washington.

   Silberstein said big wholesale markets appear vulnerable to stepped-up
   government action, but street markets have increased despite such
   moves. "We see at the same time that the big wholesale markets were
   closed down and street market space shot up," he said.

   The report said Pyongyang was an exception to the trend as markets have
   diminished in the city in recent years because of a major crackdown by
   the government in 2010.

   But others said Pyongyang appeared to be easing restrictions on
   markets.

   "Clearly, markets are expanding in North Korea at the present, and it
   is an indication that the government is more tolerant of them," wrote
   Stephen Haggard, a professor at the University of California-San Diego
   who follows North Korea's economy closely, in an email to VOA.

   But Haggard said he suspected that Pyongyang was continuing to allow
   markets to expand.

   "The key issue is credibility: Can the government allow this process to
   continue?" asked Haggard.

   Jee Abbey Lee contributed to this report, which was produced in
   collaboration with the VOA Korean service.
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   ackdown/2997593.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/markets-expand-north-korea-despite-crackdown/2997593.html