The Kyonghung Guidance Bureau, a major North Korean trading company, and Pyongyang’s Taesong Department Store marked Kim Il Sung’s birthday on Apr. 15 with an extravagant distribution of gifts to some of its employees, Daily NK has learned.
“Pyongyang residents and people in the suburbs have all heard rumors that the Kyonghung Guidance Bureau and Taesong Department Store held one of their biggest holiday provisions ever to mark the holiday,” a reporting partner in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
According to the reporting partner, the Kyonghung Guidance Bureau and Taesong Department Store carried out a holiday provision for two days, Apr. 12 and Apr. 13, providing managing staff with cash bonuses of KPW 40,000 and higher officials with gradually higher bonuses, with vice director-level officials receiving KPW 500,000. One USD equalled KPW 8,010 as of Apr. 16.
Officials were also presented with a 5-kilogram container of cooking oil, four 450-gram bags of seasoning, 3 kilograms of sugar, 2.5 kilograms of pork, 20 halibuts, four bottles of Korean-made alcohol, one bottle of foreign alcohol sold in dollars, one bag of five apples and pears, one 2-kilogram chicken, candies, snacks and two pairs of shoes from Yuwon Shoe Factory, though actual weights and numbers changed slightly according to the rank of the recipient.
“Kyonghung Guidance Bureau and Taesong Department Store teach their employees that they must bring about a decisive improvement in the lives of the people by selling better light industrial items at rational prices, and make the holiday more prosperous,” the reporting partner said. “Because officials produced successful results in the first quarter, they were rewarded as promised.”
Essentially, the Kyonghung Guidance Bureau and Taesong Department Store promised employees that they would provide bonuses of cash and goods if they overachieved on their first quarter foreign currency quotas by raising sales between January and Kim Il Sung’s birthday.
Spurred on by the promise, officials at the two organizations ran around like their lives depended on it to raise sales, despite difficulties and omnipresent shortages. In the end, first quarter sales were 1.5 times higher compared to last year, and the officials were richly rewarded, the reporting partner said.
“People in Pyongyang and nearby Pyongsong are all jealous, having heard of the Kyonghung Guidance Bureau and Taesong Department Store’s lavish holiday provisions,” he said. “However, they also criticized how only officials in positions of responsibility received provisions, with ordinary workers excluded.”
In fact, only cadres above the rank of manager received the holiday provision, while ordinary service workers and salespersons, who all had to work on the Apr. 15 holiday, were left with a bad taste in their mouths, the reporting partner said.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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