The First Ten Years of Kim Jong-il's Economic Policy: Changes and Future Direction of North Korea's Economic Policy

Abstract

What will the North Korean economy look like a decade from now? Ever since North Korea's implementation of its Economic Management Improvement Measures in July 2002, a wide range of views have been voiced with regard to the future direction of the North Korean economy. This paper discusses what changed and what remained the same during the ten years since the death of Kim Il-Sung in July 1994, after which North Korea began trying to change its economy in accordance with its own version of socialism. The current state of the North Korean economy makes certain things clear. Difficult though it may be to predict how the quantitative aspects of the North Korean economy will change, there is general agreement that it will increasingly become market-oriented. However, there is no agreement on the pace of transition. Will it be a radical bang or a gradual transformation or a third-way. The future direction of the North Korean economy will become more evident over time.