North Korea’s Pyongyang Department Store No. 1 recently launched an intranet-based online store, a senior official from the company said at a national IT exhibition in an interview published last week by the state-run outlet Dawn.

The shop’s head of commercial information Son Chun Sil said the department store has established a “comprehensive commerce system” through the website, adding the system was also able to manage the activity of industrial units as well as the online shop.

Through the new system, she said, the department store has become a  place where people can find and purchase “very high-quality goods whose