Democratic in Yasni Exposé of Felix Abt

ANALYSIS: KIM JONG IL, THE REFORMER? — NORTH KOREA IS WHERE VIETNAM AND CHINA WERE BEFORE THEY STARTED MAJOR MARKET OVERHAULS. — By Bradley K. Martin — Special to GlobalPost, published: June 24, 2010 06:47 ET in Worldview — Now that food shortages reportedly have forced North Korea to reverse its crackdown on capitalist-style markets, more systematic reforms for its collapsed economy may not be far behind. The markets policy reversal came May 26 in directives issued by the cabinet and the ruling Workers’ Party to subordinate organizations, according to a report by the Seoul-based newsletter North Korea Today, which gets its information from officials and ordinary citizens inside the North. “The government cannot take any immediate measures” to relieve a food shortage that is “worse than expected,” the newsletter quoted one of the directives as saying in explanation for the policy change. The same authorities only late last year decreed a sudden currency revaluation that crippled the “anti-socialist” markets, where stallholders had been trading for individual profit, by confiscating the traders’ wealth. The new decrees bless and deregulate what’s left of the markets, which have shrunk and in some cases closed completely in the interim, in the hope that market trading will keep people from starving. And the directives instruct managers of state-run enterprises to pursue lucrative deals — especially in foreign trade — that could help feed their employees. This could all turn out to be the big event that finally pushes the very reluctant leadership into a multi-year campaign of serious reforms of the sort that began decades ago in Vietnam and China, according to Felix Abt, a Swiss involved in North Korean joint ventures in pharmaceutical manufacturing and computer software. “Given an industrial stock and an infrastructure beyond repair, and the impossible task of maintaining a huge army, economic reforms appear unavoidable in the very near future,” Abt, a former president of Pyongyang’s European Business Association, wrote in an email exchange. “It looks intriguing and it reminds me of Vietnam’s history of reforms,” said Abt, who did business for years in Vietnam before going to Pyongyang and recently has moved back to Vietnam while maintaining his involvement in North Korea. “The Vietnamese economic situation looked dire at the beginning of the 1980s,” he explained. “Nguyen Van Linh, party secretary in Ho Chi Minh City, favored moderate economic reforms. He tried too early, lost his job and left the political bureau in 1982. Le Duan, secretary general of the Communist Party, was categorically against any economic reforms. He died in 1986, the year of the five-year party congress which brought Nguyen Van Linh back and elected him as his successor. The new party secretary general immediately launched the Doi Moi policy — ‘reforms.’ ” Abt ventured the lesson that triggering reforms “takes something big like the death of a leading politician” in Vietnam — or, in North Korea, a “ruinous” currency revaluation. Not every foreigner who has had firsthand economic dealings with North Korea is convinced the recent events constitute that trigger. Some worry that U.S.-led sanctions could nip any flowering of capitalism in the bud. “The problem is still U.S. Treasury’s attitude,” said one such foreigner, who asked not to be identified further. Treasury Department officials began working several years ago to take North Korea “out of the international banking system,” discouraging trade, he noted. Some U.S.-sponsored sanctions subsequently were eased in an effort to persuade Kim Jong Il to negotiate away his nuclear weapons capability, but after those talks went nowhere — and especially after North Korea allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship earlier this year — enthusiasm for compromise cooled. Recent reports say Washington is moving toward aggressively strangling cash flow into the country. There is also the argument that Kim believes he cannot afford to reform the economy because it would let in information and influences that would undermine his family’s rule by letting his isolated subjects learn that the rival South Korean system works much better. According to Abt, one answer to both concerns could be China, which “will provide all the support necessary to the DPRK party and government to enable economic reforms without regime change.” He used the abbreviation of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name. “The DPRK may expect support from other quarters, for example, the European Union, too,” he said. “I think the dilemma of the leadership — economic upsurge versus the inflow of ‘subversive’ system-destabilizing information and ideas, particularly regarding the South — can be overcome with the necessary Chinese support,” Abt said. “Though the division of Korea can only be compared with that of Germany before 1990, China's division — capitalist Hong Kong, capitalist Taiwan — was a sort of challenge to Deng Xiaoping and successors, too, but they learnt to manage that quite well.” — Bradley K. Martin is the author of "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty“ and a journalist covering Korea and other parts of Asia for three decades, among other things, for the Asia Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and Bloomberg.

The largest collection of paintings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) ever shown in Southeast Asia was put on display at the Nha Trang Sea festival last week. The paintings were produced by more than two dozen artists with recognized artists – so-called Merited artists – and emerging talents all contributing. The exhibition included a series of beautiful paintings in a variety of styles and materials – prints, watercolour, oil, pencil drawings and “jewel-powdered paintings”, a Korean specialty art. The painting collection belongs to Swiss businessman Felix Abt and his Hanoi-born wife Doan Lan Huong, who lived and worked in Pyongyang for seven years, where they got to know and love North Korean arts. “Much to our surprise we noticed that (artistic) talents are identified very early in a person’s life and systematically fostered thereafter. As a consequence a high number end up as painters with extraordinary skills. Unfortunately this is largely ignored by the outside world,” says Felix Abt. - Timeout (Supplement to the Vietnam Investment Review, Vietnam's leading english language business newspaper, published by the Ministry of Planning and Investment), Hanoi

Who we are: The Pyongyang Business School was launched in the middle of 2004 with an inaugural lecture by the Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the main sponsor. Felix Abt, a representative of renowned foreign companies and investors, and based in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since 2002 was during the first 2 years a co-sponsor by working free of charge and shouldering a part of the cost himself. It later took the form of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between sponsor SDC and Felix Abt, responsible for the concept, promotion and implementation of the Business School. The Korean partners were first the former Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee (under the auspices of the Cabinet) and now the Korean European Cooperation Coordination Agency (KECCA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Pyongyang Business School is welcoming new institutional, corporate and individual sponsors, whose financial contributions keep the school going.

BusinessNK — July 29, 2009 — European Business Association (European Chamber of Commerce), Pyongyang. Press release on the occasion of its founding ceremony on April 28, 2005: All of the foreign business people who are resident in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and who represent European enterprises have today jointly founded the European Business Association (EBA). The ten European, one Hong Kong and one Mongolian business managers include the heads of four European invested joint ventures (in banking, overseas shipping, pharmaceuticals production and consumer goods manufacturing) in the DPRK and the representatives of several medium- and large sized European companies. During a short founding ceremony the EBA members approved the statute and elected Felix Abt, resident chief representative of a large European manufacturing and trading group, president, Guenter Unterbeck, resident chief representative of the German enterprise that introduced and operates internet in the DPRK and Valentin Dimitrievich Pan, resident chief representative of the Russian railways, vice presidents. As a representative of the European embassies to the DPRK the Romanian Chargé d'Affaires Eugene Poppa took to the floor to underline the significance of the association designed to lay the ground for both European and North Korean companies to do business with one another more smoothly in the future. Acting Chairman Kim of the Association for the Promotion of the International Economic and Technological Exchange (APIETE) as well as chairman Jang of one the largest manufacturing and trading groups of the country expressed their welcome on behalf of DPRK enterprises to this new association to substantially further economic ties between European and Korean enterprises. EBA president Abt stressed the need for European companies to catch up with Chinese and other Asian companies. In fact, out of the total DPRK foreign trading volume of 3.11 billion USD in 2003 over two third was mainly with China and to a much lesser degree with South Korea and Japan according to the South Korean government. The trade with the EU accounted for less than 10 %. In 2004 foreign trade with China increased by 35,4 %. Although the European Union increased its exports in the first 6 months of 2004 by 17,2% to 132,0 Mio. USD and its imports by 11,3 % to 17,7 Mio. USD compared to the first semester 2003, Europe's overall share is further declining. In its press release EBA says it is pleased to note the sharply increasing interest of Chinese and other Asian companies in investing in and doing business with the DPRK. It regrets the comparatively weak interest by European companies which is mainly due to a lack of awareness of the promising business and investment potential of the DPRK. The EBA will therefore contribute to encourage European businesses to invest and do more business in the DPRK. It sees itself as a bridge builder between Europe and the DPRK to substantially increase trade between the two. The members expressed their hope that the EBA will grow quickly in numbers over the coming years as a consequence of its work aimed at enhancing economic cooperation between Europe and the DPRK. The event was attended by officials of the DPRK, senior managers of DPRK companies and ambassadors and other diplomats of the European embassies to the DPRK including the ambassador of the Russian Federation. A visiting Polish government and business delegation headed by deputy minister Witold Gorski was also present. They mentionned that the first Polish joint venture in the DPRK is operating successfully. (The video film was made by Juergen Nyhuis) ----- KCNA, North Korea's official news agency reported: EBA Starts to Work in Pyongyang May 12, 2005 (KCNA) - The European Business Association (EBA) has started to work in Pyongyang. It, jointly founded by all of the foreign business people who are resident in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and who represent European enterprises, will contribute to encouraging European businesses to invest and do more business in the country. According to its press release, it sees itself as a bridge builder between Europe and the DPRK to substantially increase trade between the two. Its founding ceremony took place at Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang on April 28. During the event the members of EBA expressed their hope that it will grow quickly in numbers over the coming years as a consequence of its work aimed at enhancing economic cooperation between Europe and the DPRK. ----- 1 year later - EBA Pyongyang celebrated its first anniversary. More on this here: http://www.eaca.asia/site/etc/press_review.ht m?mode=view&num=644&page=30&pPart=&pKeyword=& pGroup=

Felix Abt (born on 15 January 1955 in Switzerland), "a well-known North Korean affairs specialist"(Yonhap), is considered a prime reference point on investment and business issues in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Abt is one of the first foreign business pioneers in North Korea where he was living from 2002 to 2009 and developing and operating various businesses. In addition, he was co-founder and school director of the Pyongyang Business School where he was involved in capacity building related to business administration for senior executives of North Korean government agencies and enterprises. He has been featured and interviewed by numerous media, including CNN, FOXNews, ABC BBC, Le Monde, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, AFP, Businessweek, The Financial Times and Bloomberg and has been giving advice to business associations

Felix Abt, a representative of renowned foreign companies and investors, and based in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since 2002 was during ...