Police in Hyesan not too long ago raided a international trade store rumored to be promoting South Korean clothes, Day by day NK has realized.
Talking anonymously, a Day by day NK supply in Ryanggang Province mentioned cops in Hyesan “raided town’s international trade store on Aug. 16, locking its doorways and inspecting gadgets within the store for a number of hours.” He mentioned the inspection occurred after anyone informed the police that the store “was rumored to promote clothes from puppet South Korea.”
The primary prospects of Hyesan’s international trade store — which sells higher-quality gadgets than markets at increased costs — are donju, or the nation’s rich entrepreneurial class.. They place orders on the store for clothes of their most well-liked types, which they purchase and put on once they are available in.
They often order South Korean clothes, which was once smuggled via the border into North Korea and bought on the sly earlier than the pandemic. Nonetheless, with smuggling coming to a halt and South Korean items rising more durable to purchase, donju started putting orders for South Korean items with the international forex store’s employees.
Demand for S. Korean items stays excessive
Whereas crackdowns on South Korean items in North Korea are nothing new, they’ve intensified to unprecedented ranges. However, with demand for South Korean merchandise remaining excessive, the international trade store’s employees import and promote such gadgets utilizing methods to keep away from crackdowns.
“The international trade store’s employees, who deliver gadgets via customs themselves to promote them, obtained many orders for South Korean garments from donju this yr,” the supply mentioned. “Not solely are there so many orders, however South Korean clothes is extra worthwhile than different clothes, so the employees secretly promote it after discovering methods to get it via customs.”
The international trade store’s employees purchase all kinds of South Korean garments, from bras and different innerwear to outerwear, from Chinese language merchants. After altering the manufacturers and tags to Chinese language ones, to make them look Chinese language-made, they import them via customs.
“At first, they tried a few times to get stuff via customs as an experiment,” the supply mentioned. “When it handed via safely, they elevated the varieties and quantities of clothes and now import it alongside Chinese language-made clothes. Nonetheless, when rumors that the store was importing South Korean clothes unfold among the many public, the police heard them, too, which led to the inspection.”
Nonetheless, police in Hyesan discovered no proof that any clothes displayed on the international trade store was South Korean. As a substitute, they criticized the store for its “unsophisticated merchandise that didn’t accord with North Korean model” and accepted a 1,000 yuan bribe to show a blind eye.
“The store would take unnecessary losses if it fell out of the police’s favor, so that they had no alternative however to pay the bribe,” the supply mentioned. “In any case, irrespective of how a lot crackdowns intensify, they’ll have little substantive impact as secret transactions will proceed in numerous methods.”
Day by day NK works with a community of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For safety causes, their identities stay nameless.
Please ship any feedback or questions on this text to dailynkenglish@uni-media.web.
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