N. Korea lifts ban on private markets to prevent famine

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Post:

SEOUL -- Bowing to reality, the North Korean government has lifted all restrictions on private markets -- a last-resort option for a leadership desperate to prevent its people from starving.

In recent weeks, according to North Korea observers and defector groups with sources in the country, Kim Jong Il's government admitted its inability to solve the current food shortage and encouraged its people to rely on private markets for the purchase of goods. Though the policy reversal will not alter daily patterns -- North Koreans have depended on such markets for more than 15 years -- the latest order from Pyongyang abandons a key pillar of a central, planned economy.

With November's currency revaluation, Kim wiped out his citizens' personal savings and struck a blow against the private food distribution system sustaining his country. The latest policy switch, though, stands as an acknowledgment that the currency move was a failure and that only capitalist-style trading can prevent widespread famine.

"The North Korean government has tried all possible ways [for a planned economy] and failed, and it now has to resort to the last option," said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "There's been lots of back and forth in what the government has been willing to tolerate, and I cannot rule out the possibility of them trying to bring back restrictions on the markets. But it is hard for the government to reverse it now."

Because North Korea operates in secrecy and isolation, outside observers rely on informants and accounts from defectors. In this case, experts agree that the food shortage is dire. Several analysts who monitor and travel to North Korea said that in recent weeks, Pyongyang has abandoned almost all its rules about who can spend money and when. That would seem to indicate that Kim -- who once equated free-market trading with "egotism" and a collapse of social order -- now wants to rehabilitate the markets damaged in November.
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I guess Mini Me finally realized that starving his own people for the sake of the Son of Heaven's survival was counterproductive...

[ErnstBlofeld]

I think that its a little too late for Kim Jong Il. I feel that he has severly damaged himself when he decided to sink that ROKN patrol boat. The ROKN will be boarding every ship that is headed and leaving North Korean Ports for weapons.

[Valin]

I think that its a little too late for Kim Jong Il. I feel that he has severly damaged himself when he decided to sink that ROKN patrol boat. The ROKN will be boarding every ship that is headed and leaving North Korean Ports for weapons.

 

 

I hope so.

Maybe the ROK will finaly understand you can't make nice with people like Kim Jong Il. They just view it as weakness.

[ErnstBlofeld]

The days of the ROK being nice to the DPRK are over. The ROK government needs to tighten the noose to end the DPRK weapons running and other illegal activities that give Kim Jong Il his source of money,which they have promised to do.Anyway, the food that should go to the population is diverted to feed his 1.2 million man KPA.