A trading company affiliated with North Korea’s Ministry of Defense is preparing to deploy soldiers overseas for foreign currency earning activities, Daily NK has learned.
“Jonsong Trading Company, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, is currently recruiting soldiers to dispatch overseas in compliance with Workers’ Party orders,” a reporting partner in the North Korean military told Daily NK yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The reporting partner said that Jonsong Trading Company had deployed soldiers to work overseas in Mongolia and Russia in 2019, right before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Korea’s defense ministry operates a number of trading companies. One of these companies is the Kumrung Trading Corporation, known to be affiliated with General Bureau 7, which mobilized laborers to earn money overseas in countries like Russia, Laos, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Qatar during the Kim Jong Il era.
Unlike relatively long-running trade companies like Cholhyun Trade Company or Kumrung Trading Corporation, Jonsong Trade Company is a relatively newer company formed after Kim Jong Un’s ascent to power and, as a company affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, specializes in deploying soldiers overseas to secure funding for the regime.
“It is unclear where exactly personnel will be deployed to this time, but the current round of recruitment began at the end of April. They are recruiting troops between the ages of 21 and 25 from non-combat units like the Engineering Bureau or Construction Bureau,” the reporting partner said.
Usually when North Korean authorities recruit military personnel to deploy overseas, information is provided about how many people they are looking to recruit or where the soldiers will be sent. This time around, however, the information obtained by the reporting partner is unclear, perhaps due to efforts by the authorities to keep the deployment as secret as possible.
“All that is known is that they are looking for about 100 individuals and that these personnel will be sent to two different locations,” the reporting partner explained.
Additionally, the reporting partner suggested that Jonsong Trading Company seems to be placing special emphasis in the current round of recruiting on candidates’ ages and the results of their comprehensive health exams.
Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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