Jim Rogers, who co-founded legendary hedge fund Quantum with George Soros, once said in 2016:
““North Korea today is where China was in 1981. Deng Xiaoping started opening up in ‘78. Most of us, including me, either weren’t aware of it or if we were aware of it. We ignored it, didn’t pay any attention. North Korea is doing that now.” ”
Whether Korea is heading down a similar trajectory or not, they have been constantly revising their investment and business laws in the last 5 years. In 2014, we published North Korea’s latest investment laws online. This has become a great resource for people trying to understand how the economy and business environment is changing.
North Korea’s Korea Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Committee (KFIECC - a mouthful!) published a new guide in 2016 on the business and investment environment in the country. Some laws have been updated and we hope this becomes a useful resource in studying North Korea’s economy. To us, the most impressive change has been an attempt to make the guide user-friendly in content and layout. Instead of re-listing all the economic laws, the guide combines relevant investment laws with basic data and facts about the country (e.g. population/electricity/geography...etc.) in a brief 114 pages.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emphasized that the US primary concern with North Korea is the nuclear program and does not seek an overthrow of the government. Tillerson emphasized that after resolution of the issue, and to decrease North Korea’s threat perception of the US, the US could invest in the country. So with a lot of luck and hard work between the US, China, North and South Korea, perhaps this guide will be a lot more useful some time next year, or the year after, or maybe sometime soon!
The full “Investment Guide to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” can be found at https://www.chosonexchange.org/s/Investment-Guide-to-the-DPRK.