Three years into the pandemic, Choson Exchange thrives with online programmes in North Korea
Four committed Choson Exchange volunteers joined our trip to Pyongyang this month and talked about topics that are among the most pressing for many frontier entrepreneurs in North Korea: How to test business ideas quickly and effectively on a small budget, how to create a brand that resonates with customers in an increasingly competitive market, and how to use accounting to keep track of money in a company.
2016 was a tough year of tension and international policy changes. However, Choson Exchange continued to implement trainings and capacity-building programs, bringing the spirit and knowledge of frontier entrepreneurship to the DPR Korea.
Let's have a look at Choson Exchange Annual Report 2016 to review our work, achievements and future vision, in order to support the entrepreneurship in North Korea.
Jim Rogers, who co-founded legendary hedge fund Quantum with George Soros, once said in 2016: “North Korea today is where China was in 1981. Deng Xiaoping started opening up in ‘78. Most of us, including me, either weren’t aware of it or if we were aware of it. We ignored it, didn’t pay any attention. North Korea is doing that now.” North Korea’s Korea Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Committee (KFIECC - a mouthful!) published a new guide in 2016 on the business and investment environment in the country.
The room we conduct workshops on has also fostered debate. We've seen our participants really go at it over marketing and growth strategies, debating to a point where it got a little uncomfortable for the rest of us. We've also seen real cooperation and solidarity as participants try to figure out challenges our volunteer workshop leaders have assigned them. The room is large, easily accommodating one hundred people or more, and let's us move people around to create small, active groups.
There are questions on how much Moon can engage, or how soon, given the potential US political backlash. But anyway, here are our colleague Andray's personal views on how a new economic engagement policy under South Korea should look like: "Supporting smaller-scale investments in North Korea by South Korean companies offers a more promising path to achieving greater North-South economic cooperation....Even at the KIC’s peak era, the limitations on its success and spillover effects into the North Korean economy were manifold..."
In September 2016, Marcus Olsson, the co-founder and CEO of Swedish tech startup SceneThere which produces custom 360-degree video experiences, visited North Korea as a volunteer with Choson Exchange to lead workshops on innovation and entrepreneurship as a workshop leader. He realized that there is more to DPRK than what he has read in the media and created the world's first interactive VR experience from North Korea, to encourage better understanding of this country.
China has Alibaba and Taobao, the rest of the world has Amazon.com — except the DPRK, where a team of North Koreans pitched our volunteers for an e-commerce platform on the domestic intranet that would connect customers with businesses through web- and mobile apps. The pitch was part of our latest Pyongyang Startup Bootcamp, a series of talks and mentoring sessions with CE volunteers who spent a week in the DPRK to help more than 80 Koreans develop business ideas for the local market.
There has been a lot of talk in the US and by President Donald Trump about how China owns the North Korea issue, and how only China has leverage over North Korea. We just finished reading an amazing report “China’s Engagement of North Korea: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe” by the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) on China’s attitudes and approach to North Korea. This report is a valuable contribution to the field, as it fills in the major gap US scholars and think tanks have in understanding China’s thinking on this important issue. It’s a long read, but worth the time as it goes beyond the superficial analysis of “China does not want refugees flooding its border if North Korea collapses”.
The Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang has always treated us kindly. From sharing with us home-brewed Teh Tarik to home-cooked Mee Rebus, the few times we have met with them has been one of rich hospitality. The diplomats we met there seem to enjoy their stay, despite the hardship nature of the posting. While not a particularly active relationship, it was seemingly cordial with party to party, government to government and some economic and cultural exchanges.
