Selling Cars in DPRK

I'll be writing more about business in North Korea soon, particularly the markets (seen on Google Earth) that North Korean Economy Watch, among others, has been covering. But I wanted to share this Wall Street Journal article, largely because I'm not sure what, if anything, it signifies.

SEOUL -- A South Korean company that builds and sells cars in North Korea made money -- albeit a small amount -- for the first time last year, the company said Wednesday.

Pyeonghwa Motors Corp., closely linked to the Unification Church, earned about $700,000 on the sale of about 650 cars in North Korea, a company spokesman said. The company remitted $500,000 of the net profit to its headquarters in Seoul in a U.S. dollar-denominated transactions through Hong Kong, he said.

It's not clear who's buying the cars, but I would imagine its the government, especially since some models seem to look like the coveted Mercedes-Benz models long favored by DPRK officials.

Another interesting graph on the state of foreign trade in North Korea:

Pyeonghwa, like other companies that do business in North Korea, faced enormous difficulty moving its money out of the country. Many Chinese businesses resort to buying commodities in North Korea with their profits, then exporting them to China to be sold for Chinese currency.

Anyone out there got any thoughts?