North Korean automobile company still produces vehicles
/Screen capture from Twitter
North Korean automobile company Pyeonghwa (Peace) Motors, which is run by the regime of Kim Jong-un, still produces vehicles, a digital media website Mashable reported Monday.
Pyeonghwa was established in 1999 as a joint venture between South Korea’s Unification Church and Ryonbong General Corp. a corporation controlled by the North Korean government.
However, in 2013, the church gave full ownership to North Korea due to complaints about poor sales and meager profits. Since then, information about the firm has been hard to find.
Andray Abrahamian, research director at the North Korea-focused nonprofit Choson Exchange, visited the factory last month and found out the status of the company.
He said the company produces vehicles at its factory in the city of Nampo, a seaport on North Korea’s west coast.
At its sole dealership in Pyongyang, visitors can check out the vehicles, test-drive them and even purchase spare parts.
Abrahamian said one staff member at the dealership told him the firm produced 1,600 cars last year.
The brochures which he received introduce the models’ specifications such as fuel consumption and maximum speed. The vehicles are 80 horsepower or less. By comparison a Toyota Camry has 178 horsepower.
The vehicles on the promotional list are priced at $10,000 to $30,000. The vehicles are manufactured primarily in North Korea but sent somewhere else for final assembly. The vehicles were known to be based on models from Fiat and Chinese carmaker Liaoning Shuguang Automotive, known as SG Automotive.
Although very few North Koreans own cars, the North Korean people are known to prefer imported cars.
“I would estimate around 10 to 20 percent of the cars in Pyongyang are Pyeonghwa vehicles,” Simon Cockerell, general manager of North Korea travel company Koryo Tours, said.