Foie gras, puppies, water parks: North Korea gets a glow-up
Kim Jong-un wants his middle class to splurge and is funding a splashy leisure boom to soak up their excess cash
The consumption drive extends to luxury malls, beach resorts and ski destinations that are popping up around North Korea, according to a review of trade statistics and state media reports, and interviews with five recent visitors and two defectors.
It’s not just about expanding access to life’s little luxuries, analysts say. By channelling personal spending through state-controlled leisure and retail networks, Kim strengthens government control of commerce, squeezes informal markets and unlocks new sources of revenue and growth for the nuclear-armed country.
The strategy drew “the production, distribution and capital flows concentrated in the markets into an official economic space managed by the state,” said Kang Seong-hyeon, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Hyundai Research Institute think tank.
