2010.01.1115:27
Another major wholesale market near the capital
His government has ordered the closure by the end of March of a large wholesale market in the northeastern port city of Chongjin, according to Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group with a network of informants inside the country. Another major wholesale market near the capital, Pyongyang, was shut down in June.
After a decade of explosive growth, markets have substantially supplanted the central government as a means of employing and distributing food to North Korea's 23.5 million people.
The spread of grass-roots capitalism — and the government's inability to control it — has angered Kim and his top lieutenants.
To hobble traders who acquire goods from neighboring China, the government has imposed controls on travel and lodging in border areas, ordered the public not to use the large suitcases that are popular with traders and increased punishment for illegal border crossing.
North Korea is "not moving toward a free-market economy, but will further strengthen the principle and order of social economic management," an official of
At the end of 2009, North Korea moved suddenly to wipe out the wealth of all those who had profited from market trading. It revalued the local currency, the won, while sharply restricting the amount of old won that could be traded for new. The rules, as first announced, made it illegal for citizens to possess more than $40 worth of local currency.
After a decade of explosive growth, markets have substantially supplanted the central government as a means of employing and distributing food to North Korea's 23.5 million people.
The spread of grass-roots capitalism — and the government's inability to control it — has angered Kim and his top lieutenants.
To hobble traders who acquire goods from neighboring China, the government has imposed controls on travel and lodging in border areas, ordered the public not to use the large suitcases that are popular with traders and increased punishment for illegal border crossing.
North Korea is "not moving toward a free-market economy, but will further strengthen the principle and order of social economic management," an official of
At the end of 2009, North Korea moved suddenly to wipe out the wealth of all those who had profited from market trading. It revalued the local currency, the won, while sharply restricting the amount of old won that could be traded for new. The rules, as first announced, made it illegal for citizens to possess more than $40 worth of local currency.


