Police in Hyesan recently raided a foreign exchange shop rumored to be selling South Korean clothing, Daily NK has learned.<\/p>\n
Speaking anonymously, a Daily NK source in Ryanggang Province said police officers in Hyesan “raided the city’s foreign exchange shop on Aug. 16, locking its doors and inspecting items in the shop for several hours.” He said the inspection occurred after somebody told the police that the shop “was rumored to sell clothing from puppet South Korea.”<\/p>\n
The main customers of Hyesan’s foreign exchange shop \u2014 which sells higher-quality items than markets at higher prices \u2014 are donju<\/em>, or the country’s wealthy entrepreneurial class.. They place orders at the shop for clothing in their preferred styles, which they buy and wear when they come in.<\/p>\n They usually order South Korean clothing, which used to be smuggled through the border into North Korea and sold on the sly before the pandemic. However, with smuggling coming to a halt and South Korean goods growing harder to buy, donju<\/em> began placing orders for South Korean goods with the foreign currency shop’s staff.<\/p>\n While crackdowns on South Korean goods in North Korea are nothing new, they have intensified to unprecedented levels. Nevertheless, with demand for South Korean products remaining high, the foreign exchange shop’s staff import and sell such items using ways to avoid crackdowns.<\/p>\nDemand for S. Korean goods remains high<\/strong><\/h4>\n