Western businessmen who work inside North Korea, including several from Britain, provide a very different view of the country from the goose-stepping parades and patriotic dance festivals that are its most celebrated public face. Many say that behind the military rhetoric of its relations with the United States is a country that is keen to reform itself economically and many of whose residents seem increasingly "normal" to outsiders.
Among foreign investors are British American Tobacco (BAT), which has a joint venture making cigarettes, and a Singapore-based group of investors who have taken part ownership of a gold mine.
Roger Barrett, a consultant, says the introduction of incentives alongside a high quality, low-cost workforce had created opportunities. "I have been visiting for 12 years, and it has changed a lot," he said yesterday. "People are motivated much more by profitability. People can make money for themselves - I know a couple of people who have bought their own cars with money they have made by using their initiative."
| This is Mr. Barrett's meal ticket, so you can guess what he's going to say. |
In the late 1990s the country suffered a famine that killed millions, while it remains one of the poorest and most repressive states in the world.
Visitors to Pyongyang report that private markets, once banned, now sell a variety of consumer items such as television sets and a wider range of food, albeit expensive, than the rice and cabbage which has been the common diet in recent years. Some residents had even read Harry Potter, while smuggled mobile phones and South Korean DVDs have made ordinary people more aware of the outside world.
Some reforms went into reverse in 2005, when supply of basic foodstuffs reverted to state control, but Huang Yiping, chief Asia economist for the American Citigroup bank, recently visited Pyongyang and in his report compared reforms to what happened in China in the 1980s.
Another British businessman, who asked not to be named, said there was no sign on the streets of the military tensions. "If you ask people [about the nuclear issue] they just say they need it for defence."
| Not surprising that you get the party line in a nation where saying anything else gets you, your family and your extended family put into a gulag. |
Not surprisingly, several businessmen have volubly attacked American policy, and in particular sanctions such as the freezing of bank accounts related to North Korea.
Mr Barrett's clients, who generally prefer to keep a low profile, lost millions of dollars when accounts were frozen at a bank in Macao, despite their having been subject to rigorous anti-laundering policies. He said the nuclear test showed that American policy had failed and that economic engagement was the only way forward.
| "I told 'em, Mr. Kim, just like you said, now would you ask this nice officer to release his grip?" |
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