North Korea’s foreign trade system is of crucial importance to the country’s survival and future prosperity. Since the early 1990s, it has become increasingly marketized, competitive, and an increasingly dynamic source of revenue for the government, private investors, and workers within it.

NK Pro analysis reveals:

From the late 1970s, Foreign Trade Companies (FTCs) and General Foreign Trade Companies (GFTCs) under central guidance bureaus became the principal organizations through which most trade was conducted. They initially functioned as just another part of the planned economy; FTCs were transformed in the 1990s into what they now are