◆ The Kim Jong-un regime partly introduces the market economy
What is Kim Jong-un’s standing towards the market economy? The Kim Jong-un regime, established after the sudden death of Kim Jong-il at the end of 2011, introduced the “new economic management system in the North Korean style socialism” and has encouraged companies to implement financially self supportive systems. Furthermore, corporations got further autonomy to invent, produce, and sell new products aside from their state-assigned quotas and also a greater freedom of trade and joint ventures with other companies. Also in the agricultural industry, the "June 28th Measures" allowed North Korean farmers to spare larger amounts of productions for themselves. [*Note 5]
However, the Kim Jong-un regime has persistently insisted that the market activity only takes a supplemental role in the space of the socialist economy.
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Choson Shinbo Online reported that, “It is argued that the decentralization of economic management strengthens the ‘co-existence of the planned economy and the market economy,’ which ends up with a turn to the “privatization of the means of production.” However, a government official in charge of the financial administration denies that and has said that, “North Korea has surely maintained its control over the means of production, which is based on socialism.” [*Note 6]
It is interesting that the official newspaper of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Choson Shinbo Online, has repeatedly reported that, “the new economic reforms are not an "open door" policy at all."
As mentioned, the expansion and the spread of the market economy has considerably transformed the North Korean society and allowed for a social mobility that had never existed before. The flow of people, goods, money, and information has been hugely active, making state-owned properties a commodity in themselves and even a nascent labor market has emerge.
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