For nearly three decades, marketization has been spreading in North Korea, but persistent barriers mean that, even now, economic activity in the country remains fragmented.

The DPRK’s markets sprang up during the Arduous March famine of the 1990s, when the state economy collapsed and North Koreans survived by engaging in trading, often across the border into China or in new informal markets (jangmadang).

Under Kim Jong Un, the leadership seems to have come to accept that the markets should continue to operate, even as it has tried to expand its political control over the