North Korea’s exchange rate depreciated by 20%, and a currency exchanger in Pyongyang was executed.
November 27, South Korean intelligence agencies said that the North Korean government recently executed a Pyongyang currency exchanger for the collapse of the exchange rate.
According to a report by Korean Daily on the 27th, the opposition party intelligence committee and member of the National Power of Korea, He Taiqing, told reporters on the same day after the report of the pending resolution of the National Intelligence Agency that the exchange rate of North Korea has plummeted recently, so the government executed a Pyongyang currency exchange giant.
At the same time, North Korea has also banned fishing and salt production in North Korean waters for fear of contamination of the seawater by the novel coronavirus.
He Taiqing said that North Korea has been in a long-term lockdown due to the coronavirus epidemic, and the economy is very difficult. He Taiqing pointed out that under such a severe situation, North Korea called the current situation a “crisis” and the words emphasizing the crisis are becoming more and more radical. “Core cadres will be punished if they do not comply with the epidemic prevention regulations.”
Regarding the execution of coin exchange merchants, He Taiqing said that the move was “irrational, excessively venting anger, and taking measures were unreasonable”.
According to Daily NK, a South Korean website that tracks the trend of North Korea’s currency, the North Korean dollar has depreciated by 20% against the US dollar in recent months. This sudden change highlights the country’s growing economic instability, which worries North Korea.
According to the Financial Times on the 27th, Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea at Seoul National University Bank, said that after years of “extraordinary financial stability”, the monetary situation in North Korea has appeared “significant” since October last year. Signs of change.
Rankov said that the execution was a warning from the North Korean government to the public not to violate the government’s instructions on the use of foreign exchange.
Previously, North Korea’s state media have intensified its efforts to promote “self-reliance” and called for more domestic products to replace imported products.
Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Seoul-based think tank Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said that this basically conveys to the public the meaning of “tighten their belts to live”.
