North Korea has begun to focus on promoting the appropriateness of the ‘6.28 Policy’, North Korea’s first attempt at economic change since Kim Jong Eun came to power. This is being done via the 3rd Broadcast, and the reports are even utilizing the controversial term “economic reform.”
“They have been talking on the 3rd Broadcast since the beginning of last week about how ‘respected comrade Kim Jong Eun has selected economic reform measures so as to bring our economy up to world class status and greatly improve the people’s lives’,” a source from Chongjin revealed to Daily NK today.
The source explained the 3rd Broadcast content as “sketching out the nature of the reform policy and saying that we must accept and pursue Kim Jong Eun’s economic policy plan.”
The 3rd Broadcast is the colloquial name for North Korea’s unique, fixed line broadcast system that is meant to deliver content to a dedicated speaker in every home. Due to its design, the system is almost impossible to intercept, and is often used to deliver important information securely.
However, given a history of disappointment, the North Korean people remain skeptical about the policy, the source said.
“Given the barrage of economic reform propaganda we get every single morning, it does seem as though something will happen, but right now it is nothing more than a political sermon; people say that they can only know when actual policies emerge,” the source said.
However, he went on, “It is clearly a change compared to the decades when people couldn’t even speak a word about reform and opening”.
Daily NK previously reported on the presentation of the ‘6.28 Policy’ in citizens’ meetings and that Kim Jong Suk County in Yangkang Province is one of three areas being used to test elements of the policy in advance of full rollout in October.
