DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.9

The DPRK Business Monthly, an international business report edited in Beijing, has been made available to CanKor readers by its editor, Paul White. Please check the  current October 2012 edition here: DPRK Business Monthly Vol III, No.9

Titles of articles found in this issue include:

South and North Korean Buddhist monks at a ceremony to mark the fifth
anniversary of the rebuilding of the Shingye Temple on Mount Kumgang in the
DPRK [Photo: Jogye Order]

• DPRK Trade Delegation Visits Sweden
• NK Reaching Out for China Investment
• North Korea Agricultural Program
• N-S Buddhist Monks “Work to Ease Tension”
• Two ROK Groups to Deliver NK Children Aid
• Seoul Warns Trade Agency Against North Contacts
• Breast Cancer Institute Completed
• Consumer Ads Appear in DPRK Press

…plus a number of other items, including a selection of North Korean tours by various tour operators.

Comment by the Business Monthly Editor:

The Republic of Korea’s 18th presidential election on December 18 this year looks like being one to bring good news for business people. The leading candidates for all three main parties — one of whom is sure to be the next ROK president — have vowed to reverse incumbent President Lee Myung-bak’s hard line stance, and restore the thriving trade and tourism relations between the two Koreas that marked the ten-year “sunshine” period before Lee was elected in 2007. Even Park Geun-hye, front-runner for the conservative Saenuri (New Era) Party and daughter of assassinated President Park Chung-hee, has acknowledged that a new approach to the North is necessary. In this she senses the mood of the country, alarmed that President Lee’s policies have virtually ended the ROK’s much-needed business relations with North Korea, and brought the peninsula to the brink of another war.

The other major contenders go even further: Moon Jae-in of the opposition Democratic United Party has told entrepreneurs who run factories in the Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea just north of the demilitarized zone that the complex is the starting point for his key South-North economic alliance program. The program aims to gradually merge the economies of the two countries before full fledged unification takes place. Moon, who was chief-of-staff to the previous ROK president, Roh Moo-hyun, has pledged to seek a summit with the North’s new leader Kim Jong Un in 2013, as his mentor did with Kim’s father in 2007.

The third major contender, Ahn Cheol-su, Independent, has this to say in a book he recently published: “When peaceful economic cooperation with the North is activated, our domestic market will expand. North Korea could possibly be a source of growth momentum since the [South] Korean economy is currently stagnant. We can take advantage of North Korea’s underground resources, tourist attractions and human resources, and a new way could open up for building a North-East Asia economic zone or for a land route from Pusan to Paris. In fact, currently South Korea is much like an island blocked by North Korea. The transportation of export goods or raw materials will become easier when we get connected to the continent. This could be an environment where our economy could jump to a higher level.”

Please feel free to consult the full issue by clicking on this link: DPRK Business Monthly Vol III, No.9

Related articles

• DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.8 (CanKor.ca)
• DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.7 (CanKor.ca)
• DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.6 (CanKor.ca)
• DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.5 (CanKor.ca)