phones, merchant, market, capitalist
FILE PHOTO: A North Korean businessperson using a cell phone at a local market. (Daily NK)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has directed officials to crack down on marketplaces, citing concerns about the spread of capitalist influences. The directive prompted an emergency meeting of provincial officials in South Pyongan province to implement stricter marketplace regulations.

According to a source in the province recently, the provincial people’s committee held a meeting on Nov. 12 with market managers and officials from the commerce departments and sections at cities and counties throughout the province.

The committee commented that illegal capitalistic transactions are occurring not only at the province’s large wholesale markets, such as Pyongsong Market, but also at smaller marketplaces. The committee demanded that related officials move immediately to crack down on such practices.

“The meeting presented market documents indicating an increase in illegal transactions involving narcotics, foreign currency and nonferrous metals such as gold, silver and bronze. Officials also spoke of the urgent need to more strictly police such transactions,” the source said.

The provincial party committee observed that these illegal transactions have not been stamped out even though the government has stressed the need to do so every year and warned that markets that remain incapable of extirpating such behaviors will be shut down or relocated.

There was also a warning for marketplace officials. Since the government’s goal was to eliminate these illegal transactions by the end of the year, officials who failed to quickly sanction or eliminate the trade in nonferrous metals, foreign currency and narcotics may be relieved of their duties.

In the meeting, municipal and county commerce departments and bureaus and market managers were ordered to police illegal transactions taking place at the marketplaces under their jurisdiction and notified that, if necessary, a province-wide crackdown might be ordered.

The matters discussed in the meeting were subsequently communicated to markets and merchants throughout the province, which has had a chilling effect on the markets.

Notably, merchants are worried that the campaign to eliminate capitalist elements may reach beyond nonferrous metals, foreign currency and narcotics to imported foods and manufactured goods.

“Vendors couldn’t help noting that the orders were accompanied by a political slogan about blocking the spread of capitalistic elements through markets and are worried that they may be punished to set an example to the others,” the source said.

“The authorities mean business with this crackdown. Vendors who have been trading in nonferrous metals, foreign currency or narcotics are currently laying low and looking for ways to slip through the dragnet. They’re afraid that if the authorities look too closely into their past activities, they won’t be able to get off the hook,” he added.

Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.

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