The North Korean Economy - Part Two

Political Economy Research is no fan of the cult of GDP and GNP figures for measuring economic growth but we recognize that is what a market economy looks for - When it comes to North Korea that can be very misleading and seriously underestimate real growth and human welfare in a predominantly planned self reliant non market economy.

GDP was never meant to be a measure of how well-off society is. Only under neoliberalism it has become such a fake indicator with huge propaganda value

The "Grey Market" in North Korea is firmly under control of Government of North Korea who utilize the market mechanism but do not legitimize it as socialist like China.

https://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/legitimizing-market-socialism.html


We link to two studies of  Hyundai Research Institute in South Korea on the North Korean Economy with all their hostile political bias having to admit to serious growth in North Korea even by market standards.

http://hri.co.kr/upload/publication/2012622101635[1].pdf

http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nk-uploads/Hyundai-Research-Institute-2014-3-14.pdf

If North Korea really is achieving per capita annual GDP growth rates of 9% as claimed by the Hyundai Research Institute, and if salaries really have grown 250-1,200% over the last 10 years, then North Korea has the fastest growing economy in the industrialised world, and its people are seeing the fastest growth in real incomes in the world writes Alexander Mercouris

That no doubt explains the growing self-confidence of the North Korean leadership and the genuine popularity (as opposed to personality cult) of Kim Jong-un, which even some Western observers are reluctantly admitting.

One of the great problems of the West is that it always seem to struggle to recognise or adjust to a change of reality in any particular given situation.

Just as the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia in 2014 in the completely mistaken belief that Russia’s economy is a house of cards – which is what it was in the 1990s – so the West still believes that North Korea is a basket case one step away from total collapse, as it also was in the 1990s.

The result in both cases is a fruitless search for sanctions in order to tip things over, and anger and bafflement when they fail to work.

In the case of North Korea, what the West believes is the ‘magic bullet’ – Chinese sanctions – will never happen on anything like the scale the West wants or which would make a significant difference.  Given that this is so the thing to do is what the West has always and consistently refused to do and which the Chinese and the Russians are urging the West to do: open direct talks with Kim Jong-un.

In the meantime, whilst the West drags its heels about doing this, Kim Jong-un and North Korea continue to grow stronger, and the military balance in the north east Pacific continues to shift slowly but steadily in their favour.


SOURCE: http://theduran.com/truth-north-korea-booming

SEE ALSO:
https://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/north-korean-agriculture-taegyedo.html