North Korean authorities recently authorized a plan by North Hamgyong Province officials to sell pine nuts in their possession to China through Nampo Port.
According to a source in the province on Thursday, after the North Hamgyong Province people’s committee received the authorization, the province’s trade agency has begun preparing to transport the pine nuts to Nampo Port.
The source explained that the province has long earn foreign currency through the smuggling of pine nuts purchased by provincial authorities. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, threw up barriers to smuggling, and selling the pine nuts domestically did not go as well as expected.
Following discussions between the province’s party committee and people’s committee, the provincial leadership proposed the plan to sell the pine nuts to the Central Committee. Provincial authorities determined that they could no longer stand by and do nothing to sell pine nuts in their possession this year.
“The supply of pine nuts include those harvested by the province itself from late September and those harvested by individual farmers and purchased by the province,” the source said. “The provincial trade agency has been allowed [by the central government] to transport the pine nuts to Nampo Port by the end of this month.”
Following the central government’s authorization, the province concluded a contract to sell the pine nuts for foreign currency with a Chinese trading company. This fact was then reported to the central government.
The province also reported to the central leadership that, in return for the pine nuts, the Chinese would provide “food, sugar, fertilizer, [cooking] oil, and other items sorely needed by ordinary people to improve their lives.”
In response to this report by the provincial authorities, the central leadership told the province to send the pine nuts to Nampo Port “due to the lack of preparations [surrounding the building of] quarantine and disinfection facilities for trade [in North Hamgyong Province].” The central government also ordered provincial authorities to conduct trade “as long as measures are taken to the fullest extent to prevent the spread of the contagious virus [COVID-19].”
According to the source, the leadership further emphasized to the province that it needs to adhere to the country’s “emergency quarantine system,” further mentioning that “the most important issue is the thorough quarantine of imported items and preventing repercussions [from failing to do so].”
The source added that the central government ordered that the common people should be given priority for the goods received from the sale of the pine nuts as part of a “New Year’s distribution.”
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