North Korea’s Economic Development and Logistics

North Korea’s denuclearization is facing a difficult dilemma. There is a combination of hostility toward the United States and hostility toward neighboring Northeast Asia. I think the latter is more intense. North Korea, which is in the position of a small isolated country, has a strong reason to be ambitious with nuclear weapons. However, when it comes to responsibility, it can only be said which comes first, chicken or egg. So the story of the future could be the only solution.

 

More than 20 years ago, I searched the road network of North Korea through Google Earth. At that time, high-speed state-run networks such as the Seoul-Busan highway and Seoul-Incheon highway, the great starting point for South Korea’s economic development, already existed in North Korea. Around Pyongyang, there was already a high-speed national highway network in Wonsan, Sinuiju, Nampo, and Kaesong. However, only a few cars were running. North Korea has failed to properly utilize its logistics network, an important condition for economic development.

 

Recently, President Kim Jong-un told officials not to break economic laws. However, more than 20 years ago, the connection between the market and production facilities, which are related to supply and demand, was never thought. The highway was used only as a playground for Mercedes-Benz cars as a result of its cliche ideology.

 

At the end of the Korean War, South Korea used military transport trucks to the fullest extent in the name of a welfare project to rebuild the devastated land. Military transportation solders used to run on mountain roads where partisans appeared with carbine rifles next to the driver’s seat to make up for the lack of logistics. North Korea should also use military transport trucks as much as possible for economic development.

 

And as a result, the richer regions are also relatively close to the large markets, which are themselves.

 

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though I am willing to be proved wrong. Nonetheless, that center-periphery pattern is there: that is, the poorer regions of Europe are in general also relatively distant from markets.

 

- [ Geography and Trade ] by Paul Krugman -