North Korean women hold up half the sky

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK204800.htm

BEIJING, Aug 18 (Reuters) - North Korean women laid off from state factories have become unwitting beneficiaries of economic reforms, setting up kiosks similar to dime stores in the United States that sell anything from charcoal to brooms to straw hats.

North Korean women take precedence over men when state-owned enterprises lay off workers and cut back production in the face of biting reforms, which have freed up grain market prices and raised wages as part of efforts to spur the moribund economy.

"As the economy shifts from a planned economy to a more market-based economy, there are winners and losers," Richard Ragan, World Food Programme (WFP) country director for North Korea, told a group of foreign reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

"Housewives are in my mind becoming kind of potentially the unwitting beneficiaries of the new market economy because they are the ones who are running the stalls in the markets."

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[Kinkistyle]

1. I saw an expose on this in Japan

About multiple little marketplaces that are springing up around North Korea - usually close to the Chinese border, where they can smuggle in Chinese products. The government is sort of turning a blind eye to all this because -- surprise surprise -- it seems to be working :)

[robcon]

2. Free enterprise, or what passes for it in North Korea,...

always "works."

[Kinkistyle]

4. Heh, well its not perfect. One can already smell the corruption.

Like the smugglers "barons" who manage to have all the connections in China, and are reaping in the dough (however comparatively small it might be), also the local government officials who are turning their backs on this little affair are no doubt receiving their share of "incentive" for doing so. As the markets grow larger, so will the income gap between the barons, corrupt officials and the regular market participants. But at least for now, its nice to see free markets putting a little money into the pockets of these suffering people.

[tlcandie]

3. That goes a long way in dissing embargoes and shutting countries

off when they don't follow your lead. Keeping even a small light on in ravaged countries can't do anything but help while shutting them out in total darkness can actually make things worse.

Thanks for your story!