China's currency and U.S. dollars are used more widely than ever before, under the leadership of the DPRK Kim Jong-un, to what extent has lost control over the economy, rather than the country's own money, a vivid illustration.
The use of the dollar and the Chinese yuan, or renminbi appreciation has accelerated Korea won in 2009 wiped out since the disastrous revaluation of millions of people's savings, the state, the defectors and the Chinese border traders, experts say .
On the black market, the won has fallen more than 99% of its value against the dollar since the revaluation, according to the tracking daily NK, Seoul news and information site on North Korea's exchange rate.
Korea is the world's most closed countries in the world, it is difficult to determine what kind of impact, which could ultimately Kim Jong Il regime.
But experts say the increasing use of foreign currency for Pyongyang increasingly difficult to implement economic policies, thereby creating a country outside the scope of the private economy, only drastic measures to curb in.
They said Pyongyang now seems to surrender, rather than trying to eliminate the use of foreign currency.
How much hard currency in circulation is estimated to be different, but at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul analyst put it in 200 million yuan, in April of research, the economic value of $ 2.15 billion, according to some assessments. Pyongyang does not publish economic data.
Pyongyang Few can do, now is the use of the dollar and the yuan so common in the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington's North Korea expert Marcus Noland said.
The Government will increasingly force people to provide goods and services to the state, and get paid won, Nolan, closely studying the Korean economy.
"This is the 20-year state want to get control of the economy, overthrew the market, and allow everyone to use Korea won the tug of war, but it's just not capable of doing any of those things," he said.
"It's just harder and harder to let them dominate. Nobody wants to sell what they are."
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Changbai town in Jilin Province, China, just across the border from impoverished North Korea Huishan City, a Chinese businessman, said he hopes North Korean officials handled more than $ anything, even food.
They do business to earn yuan will soon spread to the Huishan, a city of industry-based economy since the 1990s, has dropped about 190,000 people.
", Said:" The only thing they want is Forex traders, who sell the products, including pharmaceuticals and tea Changbai Mountain. His condition of anonymity because he was not threatening his business, or endanger his Korean partner.
In April, the "Daily NK" released a video, it says in Huishan City, an open-air market in February was secretly shoot. Shaky screen display, publicly quoted suppliers in yuan products, such as gloves and jacket, an accept RMB payment.
Pyongyang launched regular activities, trying to prevent the use of foreign currency, but without success.
Korea circulating currency in September 2012 for the criminal acts of those who died, headquartered in Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said in a report last month.
Another group, Human Rights Watch, Reporters recently interviewed more than 90 North Korean defectors to flee in the past two years, for economic crimes, they have received punishment. Did not say that they use or possession of hard currency, kick.
However, the ordinary North Korean people are very careful.
"I've heard many stories of people in the house hidden under the floor of the foreign funds, or buried in the woods up the hill back, said:" A man has been living in Pyongyang, and regularly in northeast China and North Korea.
"Nobody put it in the bank, because no one believes the government."
Worthless Won
Faith in the Korean won fell apart when Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Jong-il in November 2009, suddenly ordered currency revaluation.
Government chopped two zeros off the bills and the old limit on the amount that can be replaced with new cash. Private market activity as an attack, I saw the move, prompting people to rush to hold hard currency.
It also accelerated inflation, according to South Korea's spy agency, sparked rare civil strife, the world's most entrenched dictatorships of North Korea to achieve won not a safe store of value.
Is widely regarded as government officials monitoring the implementation of economic revaluation.
Dollars circulating in Korea for decades, partly because of cash siphoned from the official foreign trade.
Use yuan rise is a relatively new phenomenon, reflected in trade between North Korea and China and a surge in smuggling along its 1,400 km (875 miles) of land borders, where there is a lot of money changed hands. Official with China's trade is worth $ 60 billion annually.
Black market rates illustrate how far won revaluation has declined. It has dropped from 30 to about 8,500 per dollar, according to the daily exchange rate NK tracking. The current official exchange rate of about 130 won against the U.S. dollar.
"Daily NK" a source who reported every two weeks in Korea Huishan rate, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong and Sinuiju city is also the capital city of Pyongyang.
Daily NK international affairs manager, Christopher Green said, in the border area about 90% of the transactions occurred in hard currency. Elsewhere, in the private market transactions from 50 to 80% of the foreign currency account, he estimated.
Informal economy than formal - expert
Korea won more and no mention of the price, Dong Yong Sueng, in Seoul, a senior researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute, wrote in April of research, the domestic use of foreign currencies.
Significant price USD beer, college preparatory courses and apartments, Dong wrote.
South Korea's central bank estimates that foreign currency USD $ 100 million in 2000. Directors observed that the $ 200 million U.S. dollars of foreign currency, and now sloshing around the economy. About half are in U.S. dollars yuan, 40% and 10% of the euro, he told Reuters reporters.
Penetrate the market, as the U.S. government export trading companies and the use of import quotas, making profits when prices deviate from the prescribed condition, Dong said.
This is impossible with an estimated circulation of the Korean won, Dong.
He said North Korea's informal economy is the formal, state-dominated economy bigger than it is now.
"If there is no foreign currency, the economy will stop functioning," Dong said.
U.S. officials have previously accused North Korea of ??extremely high-quality counterfeit $ 100 notes. The money is considered to be used to improve the foreign regime, rather than real cash into the economic cycle.
"Nine River" in name only
Despite the claims that follow the "Juche" or self-reliance ideology, Pyongyang is no will to stop the flow of hard currency, even though it has the means to do so, said Yang Moon - soo, North Korea expert at Seoul's Research School of Economics.
Ordinary North Koreans want yuan, while the elite choice dollars, Yang said, who used two currencies on the basis of interviews with North Korean defectors conducted a study.
In Europe embassy in Pyongyang, has been more than a decade, says an official visit to the DPRK, the most striking change has been the increasing use of yuan. Most stores carry the price in dollars, Renminbi or the euro, the official said.
"People pay element of rice and other necessities of the market, said:" Ji Sheng Hao, keep in touch with friends Korean defectors living in the North.
It is estimated that 70% of defectors in South Korea also sent cash back home in North Korea, including South Korea, South Korea's support and research institutions on the Korean defectors organization.
Reuters reported last year showed how the money was being Korea through underground agents in China, mainly Chinese Korean descent. They use both sides of the border between the funnel into the North about $ 10 million annually in the million defectors usually send money to the Bank of China, which is collected by the agent.
Use won in Korea is unheard of. Wages, even in the recently closed Kaesong industrial park between the two Koreas, employing 53,000 workers from North Korea CMC dollars, the lawful currency than the South.
There are small signs of some of the North Korean government may be about to grips with the reality of hard currency.
In the northeastern part of the country bordering China far Rason special economic zone, the government-run Golden Triangle changed ten thousand yuan to the Korea Exchange Bank won.
Rate - according to people who recently visited the bank - to 1,200 won per million, or 7,350 won per dollar. From the official exchange rate of $ 1 13 billion won, which is a very long way to go.
 
 



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