December 05, 2023
Opinion

The limits of North Korea’s meager economic growth

The DPRK economy is growing, but until its institutions are reformed, this won't last

There is a slowly growing consensus that under the watch of Kim Jong Un the North Korean government has begun to implement a low-key, but quite successful, reform program.

These reforms are remarkably similar to those undertaken by Deng Xiaoping in China in the early 1980s, even though the North Korean policy is significantly more cautious than its Chinese counterpart.