Shops, bathhouses and clinics built to promote rural prosperity remain practically closed in sparsely populated counties, with local residents saying state-distributed goods appear only briefly before facilities return to emptiness.
According to a Daily NK source in North Pyongan province, the North Korean authorities have constructed shops, bathhouses, barbershops, libraries, health clinics and other commercial and welfare facilities in provincial regions nationwide to promote rural prosperity, but in sparsely populated counties and villages, they are more or less closed as there are no customers.
One shop in the village of Tappung in Taegwan county was built nearly two years ago, but many villagers visited it for the first time only last month, when — unprecedentedly — it sold salt and fermented seafood to make kimchi.
The shop in question was built well, but most of its stands remain empty, with only a few items, such as locally produced soap, on display.
Because of this, people who live in the region say there was no reason to demolish the old store and build a new one if it had none of the goods they need, and that they have no reason to go to the store when shoppers can’t even buy things cheaply at state prices.
People recently visited it when it began selling salt and fermented seafood to make kimchi, but they don’t usually shop there, the source said.
Low populations and poor products leave facilities without operators
This problem is particularly apparent in less-populated rural communities.
The commercial departments of local people’s committees, which manage commercial facilities, allow individuals to operate shops in return for rent, but almost nobody wants to pay to operate shops with nearly nonexistent customer traffic.
Keeping commercial facilities in operation in rural communities is difficult for several reasons, including low floating populations, low earnings, low public preference for products made in provincial factories, and momentary demand at specific shops where goods distributed by the state are released.
The sale of salt and fermented seafood for making kimchi at the shop in Tappung lasted only a week; afterwards, nobody went back to the store.
With this being the case, people have criticized the new commercial and welfare facilities built in rural communities, saying that while the state “built modern shop and clinic buildings, it’s all propaganda with little substance,” and that the new facilities “are nothing but shells that look nice on the outside but are empty inside.”
“The state propaganda says rural communities are becoming modern, but nobody actually feels this,” the source said. “In fact, more people think it would have been better not to build these facilities in the first place since they need to pay for their construction and get mobilized to build them.”
