| Oh my goodness, that would be wonderful! |
North Korea, which suffers from poverty and isolation partly due to international sanctions imposed against the country for its nuclear and missile tests, has proclaimed a shift in national focus from nuclear weapons development to economic development."North Korea has done a lot of case studies on economic development plans that brought rapid growth to other countries. Vietnam is one of them. Its biggest concern is how to open its doors with Kim’s regime remaining intact. In other words, how to control its people while allowing them to set up private businesses," Kim Young-hui, a North Korean defector and senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Development Bank, told The Korea Herald.
Pyongyang’s willingness to borrow economic development ideas from Hanoi is no secret. During the inter-Korean summit in April last year, Chairman Kim reportedly expressed interest in emulating the reform model to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho visited Hanoi at the end of November 2018 to study the Doi Moi Policy, an economic reform policy Vietnam adopted in 1986 after realising its socialist model was about to collapse. The inflation rate had skyrocketed to 700 per cent due to US-led trade embargoes as well as poor access to reconstruction aid after prolonged wars with Cambodia and the United States.