Well, I just came across a most substantial gap in my North Korea education. Except for a little bit about the headache that the Kaesong Industrial Complex can be for the South Korean government - last year, the North detained a South Korean worker there for about four months, at the same time it was demanding a dramatic increase in payments from the companies looking to do business there - I don’t know much about doing business in the DPRK.
But this report from last September apparently written by somebody who does business there (the origins don’t present themselves entirely clearly) seems to think that there’s gold in them there hills, concluding that anybody who takes the time to make trustworthy contacts on the ground and accept removing e-commerce from the equation would find it to be a hospitable environment for foreigners looking to do business. (Of course, all of this could have changed ever since last November’s currency revaluation, which was meant to slowdown sideline capitalism from gaining too much traction and make it harder to use foreign currency.)
Among the interesting tidbits:
The DPRK has a forward looking environmental policy that offers green investors opportunities to generate environmentally friendly power for supply locally and export elsewhere.
Investors in the DPRK are accorded generous tax concessions:
- A reduced rate of tax of 10% (standard rate - 25%)
- An additional tax exemption - whereby the investor is fully exempt from paying tax from the year of investment for 3 years, and 50% exempt for the subsequent 2 years
- Any tax paid will be returned, if a subsequent investment is made
And apparently, there’s a trade fair:
We are also attending the current four day international trade fair which opened this Monday in Pyongyang, with 120 companies from the DPRK and 14 other economies taking part.
