North Korea Gets Crash Course in Capitalism

By Justin Rohrlich, Minyanville

UPDATE: Last evening, CNN reported that a U.S. businessman has been detained in North Korea. Citing diplomatic sources that spoke on condition of anonymity, a few details have emerged: the man is a Korean-American, who had a visa to enter the country. A Swedish official confirmed to CNN that Sweden's embassy in Pyongyang, which looks after U.S. interests in North Korea in the absence of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Kim Jong Il's regime, is working on the case and has requested regular access to the man. This development may impact significantly the initiative described in the following article, written before the news was released.

NEW YORK (Minyanville) -- A delegation of 12 North Korean economic envoys flew back to Pyongyang on Sunday after spending two weeks touring companies that "represent main strands of the U.S. economy."

The group visited Google(GOOG), Home Depot(HD), Bloomberg, Citigroup(C), Qualcomm(QCOM), Sempra Energy(SRE), Union Bank, and Universal Studios, as well as a mushroom farm, a seafood wholesaler, and the Port of Los Angeles, where they leaned about trade infrastructure.

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Journalists were not permitted access to the visitors (they entered the Googleplex through a back entrance under tight security), and no mention of the trip appeared in the American media. I stumbled upon the story after striking up a conversation with a DPRK official at the North Korean embassy in Berlin, Germany.

Located on Glinkastraße, an avenue in what was once East Berlin, the North Koreans built an 87,788 square foot compound during the 1970s. After the Cold War ended, staff numbers were significantly reduced, and, according to the surprisingly friendly official I spoke with through the embassy's rear gate, two of the DPRK's three buildings were leased out to private companies.

In nearly-unaccented English, he pointed out the main tenant -- a youth hostel which opened for business in 2008. Though the North Korean flag flies out front, the decision to become landlords was strictly capitalistic, as years of economic sanctions have taken a tremendous financial toll on the DPRK.

After learning I was an American, the embassy official told me that a group of North Koreans happened to be in the States at that very moment.

Before I could inquire further, he was gone.

One of the few sources providing any details regarding the affair, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, managed to obtain a copy of the delegation's itinerary.

According to the report, "Six director-level officials were in the group, including the delegation's head, Yon Il, a director at North Korea's trade ministry. The other directors work for the trade ministry, agriculture ministry, finance ministry and industry ministry."

Other delegates included lower level North Korean directors and managers, two advisors, and a researcher from a North Korean trade bank.