ID :
92672
Wed, 12/02/2009 - 09:04
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/92672
The shortlink copeid
North Koreans angry, markets paralyzed after currency reform: reports
SEOUL, Dec. 1 (Yonhap) -- The North Korean government's abrupt currency reform has thrown the local market into chaos, paralyzing domestic commercial trading and prompting a growing public backlash, reports said Tuesday.
North Korea sharply raised the value of its currency on Monday, with a 100 to 1
exchange rate for new denominations, according to various sources in China and
South Korea. North Korean media has yet to announce the country's first monetary
reform since 1992.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based Internet newspaper that specializes in North Korea's
internal affairs, said the sudden revaluation has thrown shops and markets into
utter disarray.
"Between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday when the news of the currency exchange
spread, North Korean markets and workplaces came to a complete halt," the report
quoted an unidentified North Korean source as saying. "In Phyongsong (a city just
north of Pyongyang, in South Phyongan Province), there was a horde of people
rushing to the train station with vendors from other towns and people on business
trips trying to get home."
Good Friends, a humanitarian aid organization in Seoul, said in a bulletin posted
on its Web site that shops, public bathhouses and restaurants were mostly closed,
and long-distance buses were not operating. The sudden reform angered ordinary
people, especially small vendors who have personally stashed away money from
their market activities, it said.
"I worked like a dog for two months for the winter, but the money became useless
paper overnight," the bulletin quoted a resident in Sinuiju, a city that borders
China in North Phyongan Province.
A woman, pulling at her hair in anger, passed out at a market in Hyesan,
Ryanggang Province, the Daily NK said. Security agents were stepping up street
patrols to check the public agitation, the report added.
China's Xinhua news agency reported from Pyongyang that state-run shops in the
capital were closed on Tuesday morning. It quoted a saleswoman as saying that
shops would reopen one week later after the new prices for commodities are set by
the government.
Foreign embassies in South Korea said their missions in Pyongyang received an
"oral briefing" from the North's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. The use of old
denominations has become "difficult," according to the British embassy in Seoul.
"We have heard from the British embassy in Pyongyang that it has become difficult
to exchange North Korean currency in shops in Pyongyang since yesterday," Kate
English, spokeswoman at the British embassy here said.
Monday's revaluation was the first for North Korea since 1992 and the fifth since
its government was founded in 1947. In the first reform in 1947 and the third in
1979 and fourth in 1992, currencies were exchanged 1 to 1 with no adjustment of
denomination values. Only the second reform in 1959 raised the exchange rate to
100 to 1 as in the latest move.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
North Korea sharply raised the value of its currency on Monday, with a 100 to 1
exchange rate for new denominations, according to various sources in China and
South Korea. North Korean media has yet to announce the country's first monetary
reform since 1992.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based Internet newspaper that specializes in North Korea's
internal affairs, said the sudden revaluation has thrown shops and markets into
utter disarray.
"Between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday when the news of the currency exchange
spread, North Korean markets and workplaces came to a complete halt," the report
quoted an unidentified North Korean source as saying. "In Phyongsong (a city just
north of Pyongyang, in South Phyongan Province), there was a horde of people
rushing to the train station with vendors from other towns and people on business
trips trying to get home."
Good Friends, a humanitarian aid organization in Seoul, said in a bulletin posted
on its Web site that shops, public bathhouses and restaurants were mostly closed,
and long-distance buses were not operating. The sudden reform angered ordinary
people, especially small vendors who have personally stashed away money from
their market activities, it said.
"I worked like a dog for two months for the winter, but the money became useless
paper overnight," the bulletin quoted a resident in Sinuiju, a city that borders
China in North Phyongan Province.
A woman, pulling at her hair in anger, passed out at a market in Hyesan,
Ryanggang Province, the Daily NK said. Security agents were stepping up street
patrols to check the public agitation, the report added.
China's Xinhua news agency reported from Pyongyang that state-run shops in the
capital were closed on Tuesday morning. It quoted a saleswoman as saying that
shops would reopen one week later after the new prices for commodities are set by
the government.
Foreign embassies in South Korea said their missions in Pyongyang received an
"oral briefing" from the North's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. The use of old
denominations has become "difficult," according to the British embassy in Seoul.
"We have heard from the British embassy in Pyongyang that it has become difficult
to exchange North Korean currency in shops in Pyongyang since yesterday," Kate
English, spokeswoman at the British embassy here said.
Monday's revaluation was the first for North Korea since 1992 and the fifth since
its government was founded in 1947. In the first reform in 1947 and the third in
1979 and fourth in 1992, currencies were exchanged 1 to 1 with no adjustment of
denomination values. Only the second reform in 1959 raised the exchange rate to
100 to 1 as in the latest move.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
