{"id":324475,"date":"2026-05-19T22:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=324475"},"modified":"2026-05-19T17:18:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:18:51","slug":"north-korea-rice-price-controls-black-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-rice-price-controls-black-market\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea&#8217;s rice price crackdown backfires as traders go underground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">North Korea&#8217;s Cabinet issued an emergency order on May 12, 2026, capping rice prices in the country&#8217;s markets, but the move has driven traders underground and made rice harder to find than before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">A source in North Pyongan province said the Cabinet directed provincial people&#8217;s committees \u2014 the local administrative bodies responsible for overseeing regional governance \u2014 nationwide to prevent market vendors from charging above a government-set price ceiling for food. The directive came as rice prices surged well past 30,000 North Korean won per kilogram in markets across the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">According to Daily NK&#8217;s regular market price monitoring, rice had already crossed the 30,000-won threshold last month. As of May 10, one kilogram of rice was selling for 32,600 won in Sinuiju markets. That figure represents a roughly 3.5-fold increase from the same period last year, when prices stood around 9,000 won, and a more than 1.5-fold rise from mid-February of this year.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><strong>Price controls deepen the crisis<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">In response to the Cabinet order, the North Pyongan provincial people&#8217;s committee&#8217;s commercial bureau has been coordinating with the provincial security bureau to suppress food price increases. Commercial officials visit markets daily to monitor prices, while security agents patrol vendor stalls and inspect the account books of rice sellers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">When traders are found to have charged above the government&#8217;s designated price, security agents confiscate their goods on the spot without compensation, the source said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The crackdown has produced open confrontations between agents and traders. Vendors who have had their rice seized are pushing back aggressively, the source said, with shouting matches and physical altercations breaking out across markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Despite the show of force, the price controls are not working as intended. Traders, seeking to avoid seizures, have pulled their rice off open market stalls and are conducting sales secretly from homes or other private locations. The result is a paradox: on the surface, market prices appear controlled, but actual transaction prices are rising further.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">&#8220;People are desperate to buy rice at any price, but now they cannot even find it at the market,&#8221; the source said. &#8220;Wholesalers cannot secure supply either, so prices going up is only natural.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The harm falls hardest on low-income North Koreans who buy rice in small quantities. Among this group, the source said, criticism is growing that the government&#8217;s intervention has disrupted food distribution rather than easing it, deepening hunger rather than alleviating it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">&#8220;No trader is going to sell at the government&#8217;s price,&#8221; one local person was quoted as saying. &#8220;If they stop rice from being sold, the only result is that people with nothing will starve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Among older North Koreans, the controls have stirred memories of the Arduous March, the period of mass famine in the 1990s during which an estimated hundreds of thousands to over a million people died of starvation. &#8220;Elders recall that during the Arduous March, price controls were imposed then too, and the result was mass starvation,&#8221; the source said. &#8220;They are weeping at the memory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20260519-1\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<!-- Daily NK \u2014 A Note to Readers \u2014 End of Article Pattern -->\n<div style=\"background:#1a1a1a;border-top:3px solid #cc0000;padding:0;margin-top:32px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">\n  <div style=\"padding:20px 24px 24px;\">\n\n    <!-- Header row -->\n    <div style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:12px;margin-bottom:14px;\">\n      <span style=\"background:#cc0000;color:#fff;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:9px;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:.15em;text-transform:uppercase;padding:3px 8px;flex-shrink:0;\">A Note to Readers<\/span>\n      <div style=\"flex:1;height:1px;background:#333;\"><\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <!-- Intro line -->\n    <p style=\"font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:15px;color:#fff;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.4;margin:0 0 12px;\">Reporting from inside North Korea<\/p>\n\n    <!-- Body -->\n    <p style=\"font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:13px;color:#bbb;line-height:1.75;margin:0 0 16px;\">\n      Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. 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A source in North Pyongan province said the Cabinet directed provincial people&#8217;s committees \u2014 the local administrative bodies responsible for overseeing regional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":41014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,645],"tags":[100,695,696,709,710,767,1691,2611],"class_list":["post-324475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-economy","tag-markets","tag-sinuiju","tag-north-pyongan-province","tag-poverty","tag-food-shortages","tag-food","tag-distribution","tag-jangmadang"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Korea rice price controls spark black market chaos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"North 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