NK’s markets expand despite layered sanctions, pandemic
North Korea’s marketplaces have expanded over the past several years in spite of international economic sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from a South Korean think tank.
A team at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) showed their research findings that the market forces in what is supposedly a communist state remain resilient: Compared with data from 2016, both the total size of marketplaces (visible by satellite) and the number of people who rely on them for their living have increased.
In the report released at Wednesday’s KINU forum, Cha Moonseok, a professor at the National Institute for Unification Education, said the ruling Workers’ Party has also tightened control of — instead of trying to suppress — the marketplaces over the past two years, suggesting that it may be learning to live with them.
The number of marketplaces in North Korea was found to be 414 this year, slightly higher than 404 in 2016, while the number of markets in Pyongyang, the capital, increased by one to 31. Meanwhile, the gross area of the markets has expanded to over 1,947,000 square meters from 1,839,000 square meters.
Marketplaces are spread quite evenly across the country, and as many as 1,144,000 people, or 4.7 percent of its total population, work there as sellers, managers or others. The number has increased from 1,099,000 six years ago.
“Most people who work in marketplaces are women — this means about 8.2 percent of North Korean women,” said Hong Min, a senior researcher at KINU.
Marketplaces in the North have grown quickly since the 1990s when the country was struggling with a great famine. Initially, the regime cracked down harshly on market activity but has grown more lenient toward what it once regarded as incompatible with its socialist ideology.
“The regime has started trying this year to establish unified systems to regulate marketplaces,” Cha said in the report. “This means it will look into why privately produced goods including shoes, bags, furniture and even power transformers are more popular than those produced by state-operated institutions … At the same time, the authorities are searching for ways to strengthen tax revenues [through more taxation].”
The trend toward more trade between individuals without state intervention is remarkable, given the challenges created by international sanctions following North Korea’s sixth nuclear weapons test in 2017 as well as pandemic disruptions to its trade with China. Also, the regime raised taxes on market sellers just before the pandemic started, and then in early 2020 it started imposing anti-virus rules on the sellers, according to the report. Yet the number of market display stands has increased and the demand for them — the right to sell, more precisely has remained stable.
Over the years, marketplaces have grown in not just quantity but also quality, said Kim Hyuk, a senior analyst for North Korea’s rural and urban development at the Rural Research Institute.
“The forms of marketplaces have been increasingly modernized,” he said. “They are located near densely populated areas and major roads today, moving in from the city outskirts in the past.”
The research was conducted in September, based on analysis of data from Google Earth Pro and testimonies from sources familiar with North Korean marketplaces.