North Korea Launches Website To Attract Foreign Trade, Investment

In what appeared to be a move to improve the economic growth of the country, North Korea recently launched a website dedicated to foreign trade and investment, a report said Monday.

According to the report in South Korean news agency Yonhap, the website called "Foreign Trade of DPR of Korea" was launched with an aim to attract foreign investment into the country. DPR refers to Democratic People's Republic.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said North Korea’s economy was in a dire state, while adding it couldn’t go back on the promise made to President Donald Trump to denuclearize due to the same, the Time reported Sunday.

The new website has multiple subcategories which included policy and law regarding trade in the country, a list of North Korean trading firms, possible investment targets, economic development zones, and a list of North Korean goods including cosmetics and wellness products. It also gave news regarding trade and investment in the country, such as a calendar of trade events in Pyongyang. The website was available in multiple languages including English, Korean, Russian and Chinese.

It also gave details of 14 investment targets in the country including hotels, railways, power plants and restaurants in the Wonsan-Mount Kumgang international tourist zone on the east coast. The area was officially declared a special economic zone in June 2014.

According to the website, the country planned to build four hotels, a wind power plant, restaurants, a commercial complex and sports facilities in the same zone, and also talked about plans to remodel the region’s existing hotels, the Tongchon Power Plant and the Wonsan-Mount Kumgang railway.

The biggest project of the lot was the remodeling of the Wonsan-Mount Kumgang railway, which was estimated to cost US$323.5 million, according to a report on Yonhap News Agency. It added hotels accounted for more than half of the 14 investment targets introduced by the website.

"In inter-Korean economic cooperation, North Korea wants to attract private investment into its hotel business the most," a professor at Kyungnam University, a private university in South Korea, said. "The North's leadership has reportedly instructed the implementation of all feasible investment inducement projects."

North Korea appeared to intensively foster its tourism industry after international sanctions placed on the country were eased as a result of denuclearization, the professor speculated.

The specific date when the website was launched was not specified in the reports or on the website, which was run by the Ministry of External Economic Relations of DPRK.

The website was in line with the nation’s ongoing focus on improving its economic state. In April this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had said, “Let us focus our energies on building a socialist economy!” at a third plenary session of the seventh Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee, according to a report in Hankyoreh.

Since then, the nation has had several meetings with world leaders including the one with Trump in which the denuclearization agreement was made.

Last week U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the North Korean leader was ready to allow international inspectors into a key nuclear testing site. Trump has also repeatedly praised Kim’s efforts. In an interview with CBS, “60 Minutes” Trump stated his relationship with Kim was due to “good chemistry” and said he trusted the North Korean leader to dismantle the country’s nuclear weapons program.

“I get along with him really well. I have a good energy with him. I have a good chemistry with him. Look at the horrible threats that were made. No more threats. No more threats,” he said.

“He presides over a cruel kingdom of repression, gulags, starvation — reports that he had his half-brother assassinated, slave labor, public executions. This is a guy you love?” the CBS correspondent asked Trump.

“I know all these things. I mean — I’m not a baby. I know these things. … I get along with him, okay?” came Trump’s reply.