Much of the focus on North Korea’s markets is largely centered around its wholesale and retail markets — the jangmadang. Retail markets are the most easily identifiable and visible manifestation of markets in a country like North Korea without mature marketplaces of other sorts. 

The stalls and traders that comprise the country’s jangmadang form a large part of the retail and wholesale distribution system, but market activity in North Korea goes beyond consumer goods, food, industrial inputs and raw materials. 

The foundational part of a market economy is arguably the markets for production factors