North Korea could begin to open its domestic market incrementally by setting up a limited number of special economic zones (SEZs), long-time North Korea watcher and economist Chan Young Bang said in a recent interview with NK News.

That, he argued, would allow the country to kickstart critical economic development without the jeopardizing regime security.

April saw North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declare a “new strategic line” for the country: with the nuclear program complete, he said, the DPRK could now focus on building its “socialist economic system.”

This comes, too, amid repeated insistence by top U.S. officials that