North Korea is pushing ahead with a plan to build factories in the provinces under its “20×10 regional development policy.” As part of this, the government is imposing non-tax burdens on the public to acquire construction materials and other resources needed for the project.
“In Hyesan, neighborhood watch units have recently asked each family to pay KPW 10,000 to help purchase the materials needed to build factories in the provinces. With the authorities collecting funds at the beginning of the project, North Koreans say it’s terrible to think of the non-tax burdens they will have to shoulder in the future,” a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Mar. 15, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“By emphasizing strict education and discipline, we must resolutely suppress and control all kinds of criminal activities, including various anti-socialist and non-socialist behaviors and forces, bureaucratism, corruption and the imposition of non-tax burdens,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said at the conclusion of the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in January 2021.
While Kim himself has personally warned against non-tax burdens, the practice has continued unabated in North Korea. And according to the source, non-tax burdens are also being imposed in connection with the construction of factories in the provinces as part of the 20×10 regional development policy unveiled this year.
On two occasions between Mar. 4 and 12, neighborhood watch units in Hyesan collected funds, according to the source. They collected 10,000 KRW to buy materials for the factory construction project and 8,000 KRW for soldiers mobilized to support the construction.
As a result, many North Koreans have a negative impression of the provincial factory construction project, the source said.
“The 20×10 regional development policy clearly has a positive goal of developing the provincial economy. But at the end of the day, the provinces are expected to be self-sufficient. And since the provinces don’t have enough money, they have to impose non-tax burdens on the people to carry out the factory construction,” the source said.
The source continued: “In the end, the provincial factory construction project is tantamount to cannibalizing the people. If the government took full responsibility for the factory construction project without burdening the people, the people would welcome it. But the government hasn’t taken that approach, and the people aren’t happy about it.”
According to the source, all construction projects in the country have led to non-tax burdens on ordinary people. The financial situation has worsened since the pandemic, with many families struggling just to put food on the table, but the government continues to launch more construction projects and force the public to take on more non-tax burdens. The result is growing public unrest, the source explained.
“The fact that people are calling the non-tax burdens ‘terrible’ shows how bad things are. People have become so nervous that when the heads of the neighborhood watch units come around every morning to collect funds, they often get into a shouting match over something as trivial as an extra loud knock,” the source added.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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