North Korean authorities are mobilizing citizens and limiting market hours for flood recovery efforts. These measures, including restrictions on marketplace activity, have worsened economic hardship for the public.
Speaking anonymously, a Daily NK source in North Pyongan province said Friday that the management offices of official markets received a Cabinet order reducing market operating hours early this month. In response, markets in North Pyongan province have been operating for three hours a day or less.
Until late last month, official markets operated for eight hours a day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, the authorities suddenly slashed market operating hours, saying that they needed to “mobilize the maximum number of people during the daytime for the flood recovery struggle.”
Notices have been posted at the entrances of official markets in North Pyongan province, informing people that they will open after 5 p.m. during the flood recovery period. As nobody currently knows when flood recovery efforts will end, it is hard to predict when market operations will return to normal.
In particular, Uiju county’s Yonha-dong Market and Sinuiju’s Chinson-dong Market — both in locations particularly hard hit by the floods — have not opened in over 20 days, with nearby residents unable to engage in economic activity through the markets as a result.
Some merchants have begun engaging in so-called grasshopper commerce, secretly selling their wares in the early morning or hidden alleyways.
However, crackdowns on unofficial markets are much more intense than in the past. In fact, market management officers, police and enforcement squads regularly target illegal, unregistered commercial activities near marketplaces.
Government measures stoke discontent
Public discontent is also rising. With many households making a living through economic activity at the markets, the slashed market operation hours have had a major impact, the source said.
“One merchant in Sinuiju told me that her husband is more or less mobilized without pay every day, so feeding her in-laws and children is entirely up to herself, but with the market closed, there’s nothing to live on,” the source told Daily NK.
North Koreans also complain that the measure to reduce market operating hours gave absolutely no consideration to public livelihoods. “Telling everyone to join flood recovery efforts and closing markets reflects efforts just to achieve the party’s goals, regardless of whether the people starve to death or not,” the source said. “It has been revealed again that the state doesn’t think about the people at all.”
With last month’s floods interrupting trade and smuggling between North Korea and China and hindering the distribution of goods inside North Korea itself, vendors offer little selection even when the markets open.
In fact, booths at official markets in Sinuiju and Uiju county are offering little more than basic foodstuffs such as vegetables and noodles. “Even if the markets open, there isn’t much to sell, so it really doesn’t help merchants make money,” the source said.
Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
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