Asia Times: PYONGYANG WATCH: The ten thousand



	December 21, 1999	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH: The ten thousand
By Bradley Martin

Suppose you're a producer of luxury items and you want to ship to North Korea. How big is your initial market? Two South Korean companies seem to think the answer is about 10,000 people.

Ten thousand is the number of pairs of high-priced jeans that a South Korean apparel firm arranged to send to Pyongyang to be given away at the first inter-Korean pop concert, held earlier this month. And 10,000 is the approximate number of North Korean smokers with pack-a-day habits whose nicotine cravings would be satisfied by plans for a joint North-South tobacco venture.

Apparently the jeans offer was of a promotional nature, intended to familiarize potential North Korean customers with the product of the Nix jeans firm. South Korean news accounts said jeans had been banned in North Korea as symbols of capitalism but the ban had been dropped regarding weekend attire. According to Yonhap, the Pyongyang regime was ''shocked'' by Nix's offer and accepted only after the company promised that the jeans sent would be in sedate black. Joongang Ilbo similarly reported that the North had insisted on a ''dark'' color - but said Pyongyang's Asia Pacific Peace Committee (perhaps not as shocked as Yonhap's version would have us believe?) asked for 30,000 pairs.

A joint venture between the South's Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corporation (KTG) and North Korea's Kwangmyongsong General Co plans to sell a cigarette called Hanmaum - ''one mind'' - starting in January. The cigarettes are to be made at a factory in Yongsong, North Korea, Yonhap reported. KTG is setting up the factory while Kwangmyongsong provides buildings, power and water.

The plan is to sell 80 million packs in South Korea and 20 million in North Korea over the next five years, at 1,500 South Korean won or about $1.25 a pack. The 20 million sold in the North would be enough for 10,000 smokers to buy 400 packs a year or a little over a pack a day. (Interestingly, the report of the tobacco joint venture came shortly before Pyongyang's Minju Choson, a government paper, quoted Great Leader Kim Jong-il, previously known to be a chainsmoker, as saying ''Tobacco is harmful to the health. People should stop smoking.'')

Is there any special significance to the number 10,000? None of the articles delved into that question. However, it happens that 10,000 has been mentioned in the past as the approximate number of the North Korean regime's core personnel, including the top civilian and military leaders and the State Security officers who are at the forefront of the effort to keep the population in line. Those are the people who would have the most to lose if the regime should ever collapse and/or be absorbed by South Korea. They are also the people who, in case some of them should decide to defect in the meantime, would be in position to supply the most damaging information about the regime to its enemies and critics abroad.

Rewarding and reinforcing this elite's loyalty has to be close to the regime's top priority. Thus it's a pretty good guess that the younger family members of the highest-ranking cadres get first dibs on the jeans. If the core group does indeed number 10,000, there are enough jeans in the Nix shipment to provide one pair to a young member of each core family. They'll have to fight over - or, if they are really good communists, share - sweaters that Nix also planned to send, however, as those number only 5,000. (The average value of the jeans and sweaters is reported to be over $80 per garment, which indeed makes them luxury items in North Korea.)

There are to be enough Hanmaum cigarettes to supply each of 10,000 top cadres with a pack a day each - although Yonhap's report suggests that will not in fact happen. Rather, the joint-venture cigarette ''will be sold only in special regions like the Rajin-Sonbong free economic and trade zone as it will be the most expensive in the communist country''.

Does that mean the 10,000 core officials - few of whom are based in Rajin-Sonbong and a great many of whom live in Pyongyang - will have to settle for inferior smokes? Not likely. Those with access to foreign exchange already can smoke American, European and Japanese brands, which they can buy in special foreign exchange stores and in shops in Pyongyang hotels such as the Koryo - where the elite love to meet.

And while they're at the hotels buying their Marlboros or Mild Sevens the top cadres can enjoy another luxury import - but in this case one that's being shipped in much smaller quantities than 10,000. According to JoongAng Ilbo, South Korea's Samsung has been installing 10 52-inch projection televisions and 90 29-inch televisions in Pyongyang hotel lobbies.

(Special to Asia Times Online)

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