‘활기띤 평양’ 이면엔 시장경제 확산

[정론직필]

‘활기띤 평양’ 이면엔 시장경제 확산

2012-03-14

"상업으로 돈 번 중산층 상당수 존재"…'평양 착시효과'도

 평양이 전에 없이 번화하고 활기를 띠고 있다. 

북한을 왕래하는 외부 인사들의 눈에 비친 평양은 최근 경제 사정이 빠르게 나아지면서 도시의 면모가 완전히 변했다고 CNN이 미국 비영리 매체 글로벌메일을 인용해 13일(현지시간) 전했다. 

몇 년 전만 해도 텅텅 비어 있던 상가에는 온갖 제품이 수북하고 상점도 늘고 있다. 

레스토랑과 커피숍은 인파로 북적거리고, 한산하던 도로는 차량으로 가득하다. 

완공을 못해 장기간 방치된 105층짜리 류경호텔은 이집트 통신사업자 오라스콤의 지원으로 완공을 앞두고 있다. 

엘리트 당간부만 사치품을 쓴다는 것은 이제 옛말이다.

북한관광 전문 업체인 중국 고려여행사의 사이먼 카커럴 대표는 "스위스 시계 상점을 두 개나 운영하는 북한 주민을 안다"고 말했다. 

평양의 급격한 변화 배경에 대해 전문가들은 '평양 착시효과'와 시장경제 확산이라는 두 가지 이유를 든다. 

평양 착시효과란 정권의 노력으로 평양의 경제 사정만 나아졌을 뿐 대부분 지역은 극도로 피폐한 상태라는 뜻에서 경제학자들이 만든 용어다. 

북한은 강성대국 원년으로 선포한 2012년에 가시적 성과를 내기 위해 최대한 물자를 동원해 각종 건설 프로젝트로 평양 경제를 부양하고 있다. 

미 샌디에이고 캘리포니아대학 소속 북한 전문가 스테판 해거드 교수는 북한 정권이 다른 전 지역의 희생으로 평양을 성장시키고 있고 그 효과로 평양 경제가 좋아졌다고 설명했다. 

1990년대 대기근으로 배급 시스템이 붕괴한 후 등장한 장마당 등 시장경제가 뿌리내렸다는 설명도 있다. 

장사로 돈을 번 주민들이 적지 않으며 이들이 구매력이 있는 중산층을 형성했다는 것이다. 

카커럴 대표는 평양 시내 수입차에 국영기업 번호판이 달린 사례를 언급하며, 국영기업 관련 사업으로 부를 축적한 주민들도 많을 것이라고 짐작했다. 

신흥 상업계층이 이권 덕분에 재산을 축적, 일종의 '마피아'를 형성하고 있을 가능성도 제기된다. 

결국 평양 착시효과든 시장경제 확산 결과이든 평양의 변화는 자칫 체제의 쇠퇴나 붕괴 신호일 수 있다. 

현재 북한은 표면상의 국가사회주의 체제와 사실상의 시장경제가 혼합된 형태라고 해거드 교수는 분석했다. 

그는 "북한은 두 체제의 단점이 동시에 나타나는 양상"이라며 "사회주의의 경직성과 관료주의에다 자본주의의 불평등과 '패거리 자본주의'를 동시에 갖고 있다"고 지적했다.

(서울=연합뉴스)

http://news.donga.com/Inter/New/3/02/20120314/44766882/1

북한을 그저 굶어죽기 일보직전으로 묘사해온 찌라시 기자들에게는

북한을 최근 다녀온 사람들의 말에 어안이 벙벙해지는 모양입니다.

왜냐면 최근 평양 방문자들이 평양이 망해가기는 커녕 

갈 수록 삐까번쩍해지고 있다고 소식을 전하니 말입니다.

그러나 우리 카페에서는 그런 따위 내용은 이미 진즉에 분석이 끝난 문제이지요.

왜냐면 찌라시들 스스로도 보도해왔듯이, 최근년간 북중간 교역량은

폭발적으로 증가한 바 있습니다.

그 의미는 북한의 경제가 현재 매우 호황상태에 있음을 의미합니다.

더구나 북한경제처럼 왜소한 규모의 국민경제에서는 그와같은 교역증가는

엄청난 효과를 즉시 가져오게 되어 있지요.

그것은 마치 과거 70년대 한국에 무역수지 1얼 달러만 달성해도

그것이 한국경제에 엄청난 파급 효과를 가져왔던 것이나 마찬가지 이치입니다.

따라서 나는 이미 현재의 북한경제는 매우 잘나가는 호황상태에 있음에

틀림없다고 진즉에 분석을 끝낸 바 있습니다.

그런데도 평양 등이 경제적으로 매우 잘 나간다는 방문자들의 말이

믿기지 않는듯 찌라시들이나 미국의 인간들은 또 엉뚱한 수작들을 부리는군요. ㅉㅉ

북한을 헐뜯기에만 열중해온 그들 찌라시 기자들이나 미국놈들에게는

잘나가는 북한이 있는그대로는 도저히 믿기지 않는 모양입니다.

어쨌든, cnn에 갔더니 원문 기사 링크가 있어서 아예 전문을

퍼왔습니다.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/13/world/asia/pyongyang-aubrey-korea/index.html?iref=allsearch

(cnn 관련 기사)

아래는 글로벌 메일(오리지널 원문)의 관련 기사

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/tiramisu-time-in-pyongyang/88/

y Aubrey Belford

PEOPLE   |   February 27, 2012

AMERICAN-STYLE FAST FOOD IN PYONGYANG. | Photo by Stewart Lone

TIRAMISU TIME IN PYONGYANG

The North Korean capital is going through a surprising (and slightly mysterious) boom. But the impoverished country is no workers’ paradise — nor even as socialist as you might think. Shops that were bare several years ago are stocked with goods, cars jam the roads and restaurants are full — and multiplying in number.

NORTH KOREAN COMMUTERS RIDE A CROWDED BUS IN PYONGYANG. | Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

More than one million North Koreans are now mobile phone subscribers.

A BILLBOARD IN PYONGYANG ADVERTISES A KOREAN-MADE SEDAN BY PYONGHUA MOTORS. | Photo by Stewart Lone

“ It’s nominally a state socialist system, but below that placid surface is really an economy that is starting to marketise.” “ It’s the hierarchy and rigidity of the socialist system, but it’s also the inequality of a capitalist system – of a crony capitalist system”

When Stewart Lone makes one of his regular visits to Pyongyang, he usually stops by the Pyolmuri Cafe, a Western-style coffee house in the centre of town. It's a pleasantly quiet spot in a city that's getting surprisingly frenetic in parts.

When Lone first visited the North Korean capital in 2006, "you could cross the road without looking." Now, the streets are packed with locally made and imported cars - Japanese, European and American models, says Lone, an associate professor of history at the University of New South Wales's campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

At the cafe, the brew is excellent, and it comes in at little more than a dollar a cup. The freshly baked bread is similarly outstanding. Young local students often fill the tables, fiddling with their mobile phones. The manager, a North Korean woman, is so chatty that it's often hard to get rid of her.

"It has the biggest - the biggest - tiramisu I've ever seen in my life," Lone enthuses. "It looks like a New York cheesecake."

Lone, who goes to North Korea twice a year as a volunteer middle-school English teacher, is an observer of a phenomenon that has struck frequent visitors:

Pyongyang, the capital of a country frequently caricatured as a monochrome and impoverished Stalinist hellhole, appears to be booming.

The changes are visible on the streets. Shops that were bare several years ago are stocked with goods, cars jam the roads and restaurants are full - and multiplying in number. Dull uniformity has given way, in small part, to fashionably dressed women and teens in Chinese threads tentatively aping East Asian pop culture. The hammering of construction sites is constant. More than one million North Koreans are now mobile phone subscribers.

Just why this is happening, no one can fully explain. This is North Korea, after all, where economic data are treated as state secrets. But there are fairly well educated guesses being tossed around.

One thing remains certain - North Korea as a whole is still desperately poor. The country's economy shrank by 0.5 per cent in 2010, the last year for which figures are available, according to the (southern) Bank of Korea. Agriculture, fishing, forestry and manufacturing all declined. The country has been receiving aid from the World Food Program since April last year; the program is currently aiming at keeping about 3.5 million people from starvation.

Then how can Pyongyang be booming? It's what some economists call the Pyongyang Illusion. In short, it's because North Korean Communism as we like to know it is dead. And the capital - ostensibly a monument to the glories of socialism - may just be feasting on its corpse.

North Korea is no longer the land where state distribution reigns supreme. That system fell apart in a general economic collapse that followed the demise of the Soviet Union and a series of natural disasters, says Stephan Haggard. He is an expert on North Korea's economy at the University of California, San Diego, and

one of the academics who coined the phrase Pyongyang Illusion. The ensuing famine in the mid-1990s killed somewhere between half-a-million and two million people; it also gave birth to a nascent free market.

More than one million North Koreans are now mobile phone subscribers.

"It's nominally a state socialist system, but below that placid surface is really an economy that is starting to marketise," Haggard says.

Amid the famine, North Koreans were forced to grow and sometimes illegally sell their own food. Others followed into trades and services to be able to buy the food. While the government at times has

clamped down on the black market - and continues to steadily expand the number of business activities it deems illegal - it also intermittently has fostered and turned a blind eye to private enterprise. There have been no Chinese-style market reforms, but the market appears to have crept into many sectors from below.

Huge numbers of people seem to be in the market in some way - it's very hard to

survive otherwise - and a growing commercial class appears to be comfortably taking root. And this new, relatively wealthy middle class appears not to be all that small.

The notion that only the elite of the Workers' Party can afford luxuries is outdated. These days that perception "is just for people who like to present the fiction that it's pharaohs and slaves,"

says Simon Cockerell, who works for Koryo Tours, a company that brings foreign tourists into North Korea. Cockerell has travelled to North Korea 109 times over the past decade, and was last in Pyongyang in November.

"I know a guy a who owns two Swiss watch shops in North Korea, and he's had them for quite some time, and the true elite in that country are not buying $200 watches," he says. "That's Mickey Mouse for people at the top, surely."

Taking tour groups through the capital, Cockerell has noticed changes in places like the Pyongyang Diplomatic Club. Previously the dingy haunt of a few foreigners, the club, which boasts a swimming pool, bar, karaoke and restaurant, has been recently renovated and is at times packed with hundreds of dining North Koreans. Often, as Koreans tend to do, they get boisterously drunk -

but it's still not the "carnage" you see at night in South Korea, Cockerell says.

But if the market has bubbled away in North Korea for decades, why are things so much more visible now?

One reason appears to be found in the

North Korean model of old. The government declared 2012 the year the country becomes a "great and prosperous nation" and embarked on an ambitious construction binge in Pyongyang, marshaling those resources it does command, including troops of university students who work on construction sites to fulfill a pledge to build 100,000 new apartments in the capital.

The country recently celebrated a 70th

"birthday" for the recently deceased leader Kim Jong-il and is set to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung, who still officially rules the country as its "eternal president," despite dying in 1994. All these propaganda efforts, which are of key importance amid the ascension of the dynasty's third ruler, Kim Jong-un, are very expensive.

"There's been an effort to beautify the city, which actually expends enormous resources in a country which is resource-starved," Haggard says. The city is quite likely growing at the expense of the rest of the country, he says, but within the confines of Pyongyang, the effect of stimulus is dramatic. Even the iconic Ryugyong Hotel, a 105-storey monolith, an incomplete concrete shell on the skyline two decades ago, long abandoned, is set to be finally completed, reportedly with the help of Orascom, the Egyptian firm that is the joint-venture partner in North Korea's mobile phone network.

Foreign investment also is on the rise. After years of stagnation, North Korea is investing in infrastructure and putting resources into a number of special economic zones along the China border - and reaping the rewards, says Andray Abrahamian, an executive director at

Choson Exchange, a foreign non-profit that helps train North Koreans in economics, business and law. Workers at Rason, one of the special economic zones, earn about USD80 a month - far in excess of the local average, Abrahamian says. China accounted for 57 per cent of North Korea's USD6.1 billion in foreign trade in 2010. In spite of rancorous relations with South Korea, the Kaesong joint industrial zone with the South has continued to grow, and now employs more than 50,000 North Koreans, largely in manufacturing.

And then there are the old, shady dealings. North Korea has long earned foreign currency through a string of dodgy operations including arms sales, currency counterfeiting, insurance scams, smuggling - and the operation of an Asia-wide chain of restaurants featuring pretty, karaoke-singing North Korean waitresses. These overseas business activities are coordinated by a government agency known as Bureau 39, which in turn has used the foreign earnings to import luxuries to reward regime loyalists.

Though remittances are technically illegal, North Korea's economy also has received a modest infusion of  upwards of

USD5 million from workers abroad, says Rebecca Jackson-Young, an editor and economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

Puzzling out who is making a killing these days is an exercise in guesswork and deduction. Cockerell, of Koryo tours, says one of the clues comes from the license plates of the luxury cars in Pyongyang. The three or four Humvees he's spotted on the streets of Pyongyang all have borne the type of license plates assigned to state companies.

It seems that, at the higher end, much of North Korea's new "commercial" class is leveraging connections with the state into business as a sort of "protected mafia," Haggard says. With no private civilian transport links, for example, businesses are using the military to transport goods. The result is "increasing corruption of the entire political economy," says Haggard.

A small number of people are doing well. The old order, where party rank determined privileged is fraying, Haggard says. These days, money also buys a measure of influence - and that appears to be frightening the regime.

Not that they can do too much about it. The government attempted to reval‎ue its currency, the won, in 2009, restricting the amount of money people could exchange. This move was widely interpreted as aimed at wiping out the cash savings of North Koreans. The reforms triggered rare, violent protests and an even rarer backtrack by the regime, which ended up executing the official said to be behind the botched reval‎uation.

The result now is an unhappy mix.

"So it's like the worst of both worlds in a way, right?" Haggard says. "It's the hierarchy and rigidity of the socialist system, but it's also the inequality of a capitalist system - of a crony capitalist system."

Does this mean Pyongyang's boom signals a system in decline and bound for collapse?

People have been predicting the implosion of the North Korean regime ever since the end of the Cold War, but it never seems to pass. "It seems that by any reasonable economic model the country doesn't even exist, but yet it still does," Cockerell says. Contrary to what

Haggard argues, Cockerell, who travels around large parts of the countryside and towns, thinks there might be a chance of some prosperity spreading out from Pyongyang. But with little hard data to go on, it's all hard to tell.

The only certainty is that, for a privileged few, the old grey world of North Korean socialism has grown much brighter.

"A lot of the people I work with and that I've worked with for a long time, you know, I remember when they didn't understand, when it was almost the comedic North Korean stereotypical thing of not knowing that the Beatles weren't together anymore or not understanding how a mobile phone worked," says Cockerell.

"And then that's moved up to them getting in arguments over whose MP4 player is best."

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/tiramisu-time-in-pyongyang/88/

[노송]

북쪽의 공업능력. 교역현황. 주민들의 신체얼굴. 옷차림 등 남쪽과 거의 같음. 이것은 북의 역량이 소위 "강성대국"을 공표할 실증으로 보임. 북을 알아야 한다.....

[하얀늑대]

예전에는 중국에서 곡물 실고 오가던 벌크선이 빈배로 중국에 왔었는데 이제는 석탄이니 광석들싣고 드나들고 1년사이에 운임이 60-70%이상 폭등했다하더이다 믿을만한 중국동포 애기이니 사실인모양입니다 ...배가없대요

[유성]

동감입니다,...

[촘시카]

농토, 경작지 문제는 해결된 걸로 압니다. 중국쪽 토지 빌리기로 했었지요. 자세한건 가물가물..여튼 해결되었습니다.
한국 OECD국 중에 일본과 함께 식량 자급율 꼴찌, 이게 더 큰 문제..