Photo Feature: North Korea's Halting Opening

By Iason Athanasiadis, on , Briefing

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Listless saleswomen loiter against stacked shelves at this most exclusive of department stores. An entire section is filled with sleek white washing machines, driers and flat-screen panel TVs produced by Haier, a low-cost Chinese appliance company. But the saleswomen outnumber customers in the echoing mall and there is little sign of commercial activity. Two taxis wait at the main gate, but neither their drivers nor any customers are to be seen.


The iconic image of NorthKorean soldiers standing guard at the 36th Parallel, the line that has separatedNorth from South Korea for over half a century (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis).

This is no store suffering from the credit crunch, but a showcase department store in Pyongyang, capital of the world's most intentionally isolated country, North Korea.

In the food-hall, refrigerated display cases are stacked with bottled water, beer, canned foodstuffs and other imported luxuries far beyond the purchasing power of this famine-wracked country's average citizen. There are only two customers in the vast, two-floor emporium. At the sales counter of the toy section, a middle-aged lady looks away when a foreign journalist attempts to engage with her.


A lone customer waits at an unmanned checkout in an exclusive Pyongyang department store (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis).


The rest of the store . . . (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis)


 . . . is packed with merchandise . . . (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis)


 . . . but void of customers (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis).

"Some propagandist news agencies call North Korea isolated and lonely, they say that it is cut off from the world." said Mr. Kim, one of the official guides imposed on foreign visitors to act as intermediaries and censors between them and local people. "Things are no longer like that. This is what the outside world should understand."

Increased construction activity in Pyongyang, an upgrade of the country's underperforming electrical power plants and an overhaul of its antiquated rail network are all signs that change is picking up here. In December, Egyptian-owned Orascom Telecom will officially inaugurate North Korea's first commercial cellphone network, for a projected $400 million over three years.


Waitresses stand waiting for customers in the empty hall of an international hotel's restaurant outside Pyongyang (Photo by Iason Athanasiadis).

"North Koreans are increasingly sophisticated consumers," said Curtis Melvin, a doctoral candidate in economics at Washington's George Mason University who runs the North Korea Economy Watch Web site. "They know that South Korean goods are of higher quality than Chinese goods. They also know that Japanese goods are of the highest quality."

North Korea's stealthy opening to business is all part of an ambitious plan launched late last year to transform the country's economy by 2012, the centennial of late leader Kim Il-sung's birth, the official South Korean Yonhap News Agency reports. Ground has already been broken on a commercial street in downtown Pyongyang that will feature a 50-floor hotel, a trade center, a modern department store and office space.

Next page: Out of the spotlight, shadows . . .