It seems that at long last things have finally begun to move in North Korea. It appears that Supreme Leader Marshal Kim Jong Un, and his team are actually beginning what the Marshal’s father and grandfather were too afraid to try: They have begun to turn the North Korean economy away from the established Stalinist patterns.

Signs of change are numerous. In agriculture, North Korean farmers (at least in some parts of the country) are now allowed to keep about a third of their harvest. Production teams have also been made much smaller – this essentially means that a household can now disguise themselves as a production team. Pak Pong Ju, the new prime minister and mastermind behind the abortive and half-baked 2002 reforms, is now working hard to increase the managerial freedoms of government enterprises. Last but not least, the North Korean government has officially stated that 13 “special developmental zones” will become operational soon.