A new North Korean law on private car ownership appears to be driving Pyongyang’s automobile boom, according to a Chinese scholar, detailing provisions that point to an effort to encourage consumption without creating a private vehicle market outside state control.

The sale of private cars began in February after revisions to the Private Car Utilization Law in Oct. 2024 and Jan. 2025, Li Chunri of the Center for DPRK and ROK Studies at Yanbian University wrote in a WeChat post.

Li reported that over 2,000 private vehicles were seen in Pyongyang between February and August, some of them retailing