Pyongyang’s overhaul scheme
seen tantamount to giving up socialist system:
expertsNorth Korea appears to be stepping up efforts
to overhaul its debilitated economic system amid deepening international
isolation and growing public discontent over poverty.
News reports
suggested that it has sought to expand its implementation of the so-called June
28 measures, which some observers said are tantamount to the renouncement of the
socialist system.
The measures give greater autonomy to state
corporations, allowing them to choose their production items, prices, amounts
and marketing methods, according to reports.
They also allow farmers to
take in 30 percent of their harvest. Under the measures, the food rationing
system is scrapped for ordinary citizens. It is applicable only to public
servants and workers at educational and medical institutions.
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North Korean
leader Kim Jong-un visits a department store in Pyongyang. (Yonhap
News)
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The North has recently been
struggling to earn foreign currencies by bolstering tourism, sending more
workers to China and exporting its minerals overseas, a move that experts say is
part of efforts to shore up its faltering economy.
Along with these
efforts, the leadership in Pyongyang is also striving to improve internal
economic conditions, hoping to secure more loyalty from its people who are
growingly disgruntled over the economic conditions that have long faltered amid
its pursuit of nuclear arms and provocative behavior.
Since the
mid-1990s, following the demise of the Soviet Union, the North Korean economy
has been teetering on the verge of collapse. It went through a severe famine,
dubbed the “Arduous March,” during which some 2 million people are thought to
have died.
Experts say that the new reform measures that have yet to be
officially clarified are likely to be stronger than the ones that were
introduced in 2002, but petered out due to lackluster political
will.
“For new leader Kim Jong-un, improving the overall economy for its
ordinary citizens is the first and foremost thing for him to do to secure
loyalty from the public and strengthen his legitimacy as leader of the country,”
said Kim Young-hui, a North Korean defector and specialist on North Korean
economy at the state-owned Korea Finance Corporation.
“His grandfather
Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il have a fairly legitimate source of
respect from the public, but he is lacking in it. People have expectations for
the new leader, which should be not that high by South Korean standards, and Kim
may have to live up to them.”
Since he took the helm of the country in
December upon his father’s death, hopes have been raised that the Swiss-educated
leader in his late 20s would carry out economic reform, never seen in the
reclusive state.
Many observers have noted that economic reform is
inevitable given that the market activities have already been rampant due to the
malfunctioning rationing system along with outside information flowing into
society and slowly awakening the public.
News reports have already said
Pyongyang promulgated a measure that drastically increases the proportion of
agricultural products a farming family can freely dispose of. Under the state
collective farming system, the North has recognized only the right to privately
sell crops left over after having met the production targets.
But all
these measures may not succeed in the end unless the North abandons its dynastic
ruling system, some experts pointed out.
“As it would not do anything
that would hurt its power elites, any reform and open-door policy, whatever they
call it, would not have any meaningful results,” said Yang Un-chul, senior
researcher at the think tank Sejong Institute.
“Even if they allow some
autonomy to farmers and corporations, when they don’t have any personal
property, such incentives would not work. Even though they take in some
percentage of their harvest, this would, after all, be taken away by
middle-level officers.”
By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldm.com)
