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North Korea’s sharp changes in currency and food prices have hit the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic pressures created by international sanctions pose new risks to Kim Jong Un.
Volatility will worsen the plight of North Korea’s 25 million population. It could also be called an unofficial trading system in the country’s market jangmadang, and increased instability.
North Korea’s gains have been valued at about 30 percent against the U.S. dollar and 40 percent against the Chinese renminbi since the pandemic began, the Daily NK website says, following the North Korean market.
“There is real price inflation in the market right now, which is frightening. At the same time, fuel prices are quite inflated and Forex prices (the dollar and the renminbi against profit) have fallen,” said North Korean expert Peter Ward of the University of Vienna.
Pyongyang has it especially he isolated the country since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis from foreign trade and aid, fear of the impact of uncontrolled virus transmission. Last year the typhoon damage intensified economic pressure.
Experts currency and the currency moves to the combination of fallen trade and efforts by the state to remove foreign currencies from internal circulation.
William Brown, a former U.S. intelligence official who heads the Northeast Asian Economic and Intelligence Advisory Council, said there was monetary stability Distinctive of Kim’s rule. This spurred the development of the market after his father Kim Jong Il’s dependent inflation and currency cuts.
The “wild swings” risked raising the country’s level of popular despair, Brown said he wrote 38 For North, the program is run by the Stimson Center, a U.S. think tank. “At some point, even now, inflation seems to be a greater enemy of stability. . . Than the United States, ”he added.
Go Myong-hyun, a North Korean economics expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank, said Kim had ordered the country to reduce its dependence on imports for the “disease” of recent moves to centralize economic control and tighten the country’s elite.
“The North Korean system will prevent a repeat of the famine of the 1990s. The main story here is the North Korean regime’s efforts to suppress the market system…. It is very clear to me that it is the next jangmadang, ”he said.
The Kim regime is also turning to him army of hackers to raise money, experts say.
Yana Blachman, a former Israeli intelligence agent working for the Venafi cyber security team, said the benefits of cybercrime should be seen as the primary means of generating revenue. North Korean cybercriminals have made billions of dollars in recent years an extensive set of schemes aimed at banks and other financial-related institutions, including peer lenders and cryptocurrency exchanges.
“There are a lot of unreported attacks, especially when it comes to inadvertently smaller attacks, like ransomware and cryptocurrency,” he said.
North Koreans are deeply affected by economic problems, and many of them are already suffering food insecurity, according to deserters who maintain communication with contacts in the country.
Kang Chol-hwan, a deserter living in Seoul, said food and commodity prices had risen three to 10 times.
“It looks like the Kim regime is slowly coming to a standstill,” he said.
Seo Jae-pyeong, another fugitive, says the level of food aid from China is falling, despite earlier indications increased shipments.
“Asking people how many meals they have is not the right question,” Seo said. “The question must be whether the soup is thin or thick.”
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