Lee Min-hyung joined The Korea Times in 2014 and has worked as a journalist mainly in Korea’s finance, tech and automotive industry. He specializes in content creation, breaking news and in-depth analysis currently on transportation and mobility. You can reach him via mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr.
NK braces for market opening: AI study
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, smiles while taking a look at its science street in Pyongyang, in this file photo taken on October 2015. Yonhap
By Lee Min-hyung
By Lee Min-hyung
North Korea is bracing for the possible opening up its socialist economy by pushing ahead with internal reform, a study showed Wednesday.
According to a study by the Bank of Korea (BOK), North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is making preparations for the possible opening of its market, even if the country remains closed and isolated externally.
The study was based on analysis from big data collected from the North's academic journals on its economy. A macroeconomic prediction team at the central bank analyzed 2,757 subjects from the journals between January 1988 and December 2018.
The team found out that the early phase of the Kim Jong-un regime, which falls between 2012 and 2016, focused on accepting the fundamental rule of the market economy by enhancing trade activities.
But the North failed to continue engaging in active exports and imports during the latter phase between 2017 and 2018 due to intensifying sanctions from the United Nations Security Council, according to the study.
The study also revealed the difference in economic policies between the Kim Jong-un regime and his predecessors, his grandfather and the North's founder Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-un's father Kim Jong-il.
“During the time of the Kim Il-song regime, agriculture and criticism of capitalism were the major topics of the journals,” Kim Soo-hyun, a BOK researcher of the team said. “The Kim Jong-il regime focused its economic studies on production increases, colonial plunder and criticism of capitalism.”
But since the third-generation dictator took power in 2012, a variety of pieces on the global economy began surfacing, according to the researcher.
They include foreign banking policies, currency circulation, exchange rates and trade theories, the study showed.
Unlike his predecessors, Kim Jong-un has made an attention-grabbing international debut in diplomacy in June 2018 by holding the North's first historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
He has since held another summit with Trump in February 2019, which ended up with a breakdown. But the young leader is known to have expressed his willingness to partner with overseas nations for economic growth during the meetings with Trump.