Pyongyang – On the side streets of Pyongyang, small traders sell vegetables from impromptu stalls. At markets, dealers offer imported household goods – even Coca-Cola – and in state-owned department stores hard currency is openly exchanged at black-market rates.

Officially, North Korea denies it is reforming and declares it remains guided by the Juche, or self-reliance, philosophy of founder Kim Il-Sung whose 105th birth anniversary is being marked this weekend.

But under his grandson Kim Jong-Un – the third generation of the dynasty – economic change is quietly happening in the impoverished, nuclear-armed country, analysts say.

The North was once better off than the South, but decades of mismanagement saw it descend into stagnation and food shortages, while its neighbour propelled itself into the OECD group of leading economies.

Pyongyang remains almost entirely devoid of commercial advertising, its wide avenues instead lined with propaganda posters of heroic soldiers and striving workers, or slogans such as “Let us follow the decisions of the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea”.

“We are a socialist country so we stick to our socialist principle economically,” said Ri Sun-Chol, chief of the economic research institute of the North’s Academy of Social Sciences. “We do not push for national reforms adopting a market economy.” But a series of rulings under Kim Jong-Un is taking the North in exactly that direction, say diplomats and researchers.

Many agricultural collectives have been effectively dismantled and farmland management distributed between individual households referred to as “family-based work units”, sending food production climbing.

Beyond what they must produce for the state, under what Pyongyang calls the Socialist Corporate Responsible Management System, factory managers have been given freedoms to find suppliers and customers of their own.

Kwon Yong-Chol, chief engineer of the Song Do Won General Foodstuffs Factory in Wonsan, explained that as well as manufacturing goods according to government instructions, “there is also a commercial network of vendors we use to sign our own contracts.”

‘Filthy wind’

Officials have been told not to interfere with private businesses, even while many remain technically illegal.

Enterprises are often still set up under state entities to ensure political protection, but analysts estimate that the private sector, broadly defined, could be responsible for anything from a quarter to half of the North’s gross domestic product.

All such figures are riven with uncertainty, as Pyongyang does not publish meaningful economic statistics. Last year, major South Korean think tanks were unable to even agree whether its economy grew or shrank in 2015.

“My rule of thumb is to never trust a datum about the North Korean economy that comes with a decimal point attached,” said Marcus Noland, director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The changes are similar to the first stages of China’s “reform and opening” under Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, which laid the ground for the decades-long boom that turned the Asian giant into the world’s second-largest economy.

Beijing, Pyongyang’s sole ally and main provider of trade and aid, has long urged its wayward neighbour – which is subject to multiple UN sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes – to follow its example.

But in a speech to the party congress last year, Kim Jong-Un dismissed such concepts as “the filthy wind of bourgeois liberty”, and professor Ri was adamant there was no connection.

“The reform was fit for China’s situation and was something desired by the Chinese people and if that helped with China’s economic development, we are very happy,” he said. “Our country will follow the socialist path.”

‘Unparallelled geniuses’

Andrei Lankov, director of specialist service NK News and professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, retorted: “Of course they are copying China, because China was so damn successful.

“They never admit that they are learning from anybody,” he said, but Kim Jong-Un “understands very well” that market economy systems have produced stunning growth in multiple East Asian countries over the past half-century.

“The current North Korean leader is absolutely free of ideological sympathy towards the state socialist model,” he told AFP.

Pyongyang’s reluctance to talk openly about economic changes gives it room to manoeuvre while preserving its political foundations, according to analysts.

“As long as much of this activity remains technically illegal, and in many cases subject to the death penalty, the state can always reverse course if it sees fit,” said Noland.

Formal reforms could “put the state on a slippery slope where its fundamental difference with capitalist South Korea is eroded, and the regime’s whole raison d’etre is called into question”, he added.

Avoiding undermining the authorities’ claim to legitimacy was crucial, agreed Lankov.

“The idea is that they are run by a family of unparallelled geniuses and of course the current leader and his father and his grandfather and his family are always right.” Alluding to Deng’s supposed assessment of Communist China’s founding father Mao Zedong as “70 per cent right, 30 per cent wrong”, he said: “Kim Jong-Un cannot say that his father, his grandfather was even one per cent wrong.

“He has no choice but to maintain the illusion of ideological continuity, even when he is making a U-turn. Which is very smart.”

BEIJING – Beijing has ordered 15 online real estate portals to remove misleading information, false advertising and even advice on feng shui by Wednesday, as part of its campaign to cool a red-hot housing market.

Advertisements on the websites should not promise rising returns on Beijing real estate investment, the official Xinhua news agency reported, as the Chinese capital battles with soaring home prices and property speculators.

While flats in Beijing on average are still cheaper than homes in Tokyo or London, authorities fear surging prices are increasing household debt, heightening banks’ credit risks and fanning grassroots resentment as home affordability fades.

The targeted websites, which include popular real estate portals Lianjia and I Love My Home, should also not offer to help prospective buyers handle matters related to local “hukou”residence permits or school enrolment, Xinhua reported late on Tuesday.

They are not allowed to spread rumours or disseminate misleading information such as “limitless potential for price gains.” Content on feng shui or any form of financing advice is also forbidden.

The measures are the latest restrictions to help cool Beijing’s fevered real estate sector.

In mid-March, the Beijing government raised the minimum down payment on a second home to 60 per cent from 50 per cent. On bigger homes, that minimum increased to 80 per cent from 70 per cent.

They also suspended issuing individual mortgage loans of more than 25 years, effectively forcing borrowers to take on more expensive shorter loans.

Buying a third property has already been banned.

Read also: 3 things you didn’t know about Hong Kong’s feng shui

Vehicles will be prohibited on six Bangkok roads during Songkran.

According to temporary regulations to be enforced by Bangkok traffic police, published on the Royal Gazette website on Tuesday, the six roads are Khao San, Chakkrabhong, Bowornniwet, Sib Sam Hang, Tanao (at the Kok Wua-Sib Sam Hang Roundabout section), and Silom (at the Sala Daeng intersection).

The roads will be closed to traffic to make way for Songkran celebrations from noon until midnight from April 13 to 15.

Khao San also will be closed to traffic on Wednesday from noon until midnight.

The regulation also ban pickup trucks carrying water tanks and revellers as well as parked vehicles playing loud music encouraging people to dance from April 12 to 15.

Read Also:
– Where to enjoy Songkran festivities in Bangkok this week
– Bangkok prepares for toned-down Songkran celebrations
– Khao San set for ‘toned down Songkran’

KATHMANDU – Top British DJ Paul Oakenfold braved thinning air and freezing temperatures to host the “highest party on earth” at Everest base camp on Tuesday (Apr 11), playing to around 100 climbers – all in full mountain gear.

The 53-year-old artist, who trekked for 10 days to reach base camp, mixed his beats on a makeshift stone stage set against the spectacular backdrop of the world’s highest mountains.

With brightly coloured Tibetan prayer flags fluttering overhead, climbers and trekkers danced as best they could in their heavy hiking boots and thick down jackets.

“It was truly amazing. I feel very lucky to have played here. We did a wonderful event and had people from all over the world. I feel very blessed,” Oakenfold told AFP by phone from base camp after the performance.

Base camp lies at an altitude of 5,380 metres, and around 100 climbers and trekkers were there for the gig.

“It was pretty cool. I’ve been here many years but never seen anything like that,” 38-year-old American climber Ben Jones told AFP by phone.

The number of trekkers at the camp will swell in the coming weeks as the climbing season gets into full swing.

Hundreds of climbers spend weeks acclimatising to the altitude before attempting to reach the summit during the brief spring window when the weather is at its best.

It was a dramatic departure for Oakenfold, who admitted he was more used to playing the world’s top clubs and the beaches of Ibiza and Goa than the mountains of Nepal.

Oakenfold, who had never trekked before, trained for four months before arriving in Nepal, fitting it in between a hectic schedule of late night gigs.

“I’m not going to pretend it was easy to get here … but it has been a wonderful trek. If you could see the view I’m looking at, it is very inspiring,” he told AFP on Monday.

The gig is the first in the record producer’s SoundTrek series, aimed at drawing attention to the effects of global warming and raising money for charities.

Oakenfold, whose three-decade long career has included collaborations with Madonna and U2, is also raising funds to help survivors of Nepal’s devastating 2015 earthquake, which killed nearly 9,000 people and left thousands homeless.

“I want to support in the rebuilding and to shed light on the environment … I would like to do my bit,” he said.