Felix Abt's Blog, page 8
July 17, 2014
DIALOGUE - NOT CONFRONTATION!
Felix Abt can be seen here...
DIALOGUE - NOT CONFRONTATION!
Felix Abt can be seen here exchanging smiles with Ro Tu Chol, the chairman of the state planning commission and vice prime minister in charge of the economy. Felix lobbied tirelessly for a law-based state, believing in a level playing field for all businesses, and championing the cultivation of an investor-friendly environment. Later, his efforts were rewarded when North Korea started making changes in favour of business enterprises.
More about changing North Korea in Felix’s book “A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom” http://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-North-Korea-Hermit-Kingdom/dp/0804844399/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389673356&sr=1-16&keywords=north+korea
BEAUTY AND THE CAPITALIST!
Felix Abt meets Lee Ji-sun, Miss...
BEAUTY AND THE CAPITALIST!
Felix Abt meets Lee Ji-sun, Miss Korea (south) 2008. (She’s the one on the left, in case there’s any confusion).
Felix has always advocated increased engagement and cooperation between North and South Korea (as well as between North Korea and the rest of the world). So when Ms Lee Ji-sun arrived in Pyongyang from Seoul on a goodwill mission on behalf of an international trade organization it was only natural that Felix should want to do his bit for North / South relations!
Felix has long been frustrated by the Western policy of draconian sanctions: “North Korea is sanctioned to the bones and ordinary people suffer from it”, he says. This confrontational approach from the West is, he firmly believes, costly and unproductive and he has lobbied long and hard against the attempts to isolate North Korea and the crippling embargoes that bring untold suffering to the population at large.
More about this and other surprising encounters in his book “A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom” http://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-North-Korea-Hermit-Kingdom/dp/0804844399/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389673356&sr=1-16&keywords=north+korea
MARXIST, MILITARISTIC… OR SOMETHING ELSE?
It’s hard for...
MARXIST, MILITARISTIC… OR SOMETHING ELSE?
It’s hard for Marxist supporters to reconcile their ideology with that ot the DPRK (North Korea). In North Korea it is not the ‘proletariat’ that have risen to defeat the ‘capitalist bourgeoisie’, but the military and they are considered to be the real driving force behind the revolution. Similarly, in a true Marxist country all the means of production are state-owned and while factories and other enterprises in the DPRK are, in theory, owned by the state, Felix Abt in his long sojourn in the country, found that in practice this isn’t necessarily the case.
Instead of Marxism, North Korea has adopted ‘Juche’; literally “self-reliance”, which states that the Korean masses are the masters of the country’s development. However, they also adhere to ‘Songun,’ or “military first”, which gives priority to the Korean People’s army when allocating resources and in the affairs of state.
Therefore, are the military in charge? Not really. At the top power is shared by a coalition: top party cadres (such as from the Organisation and Guidance Department), top generals and top CEOs (of major hard-currency earning business conglomerates), all under the leadership of the supreme commander Kim.
Songun has flourished through an atmosphere of insecurity brought about by the hostility of the West, with its crippling sanctions, political aggression and scathing media reportage. In a report in December 2013 the International Crisis Group wrote that “for China de-nuclearisation is a long-term goal through alleviating North Korea’s insecurity for which it considers the U.S. principally responsible.” But while America and its Western allies continue to cultivate this national insecurity it seems likely that Songun will remain as a pervading ideology in North Korea.
☆☆☆☆☆
“A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom” by Felix Abt http://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-North-Korea-Hermit-Kingdom/dp/0804844399/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389673356&sr=1-16&keywords=north+korea
July 15, 2014
Mark your calendars!
ASK ME ANYTHING (AMA) ON REDDIT
on August...
Mark your calendars!
ASK ME ANYTHING (AMA) ON REDDIT
on August 12, release day of the book ‘A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom’
See you there!
http://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaNews/comments/2akdd7/ama_announcement_mark_your_calenders_on_august/
July 7, 2014
IS THIS FARMER IN A REMOTE NORTH KOREAN PROVINCE A MEMBER OF THE...
IS THIS FARMER IN A REMOTE NORTH KOREAN PROVINCE A MEMBER OF THE COUNTRY’S ELITE?
Felix Abt: ‘a strange character’ with ‘an agenda that can’t be figured out’; a modern day ‘British colonial administrator’.
These were the opinions formed by Kathleen Cochrane, American author and journalist, and stated in her recent review of Felix’s book “A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom”.
She seemed unable to reconcile her received perceptions of North Korea with Felix’s personal experiences and first-hand account of life in the country. Most western reportage of North Korea is more aligned with Ms. Cochrane’s fellow American journalist, Melanie Kirkpatrick, a long-term member of Wall Street Journal’s Asia editorial board, who depicts North Korea as a “slave state” and a “hell-hole”.
Ms. Cochrane reviewed a total of six books on North Korea: four of the others based on the harrowing stories of defectors and one by a British diplomat. But, while Felix’s, rather differing, view of the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ was dismissed, since: “Mr. Abt seems unaware that he is only dealing with what must be the most educated, elite, and privileged in North Korea. Their experiences are not exactly representative of the majority of citizens there”, she was happy to accept that the horrific defector stories do represent a true picture of most people living in today’s North Korea.
Mr. Abt doesn’t deny that he did meet with some of the power-brokers in North Korea: it would not have been possible to conduct business in the country without this contact, as indeed was the case in all the many developing countries where he did business. But most of the time he was dealing with businessmen, engineers and workers with rather modest or no political power.
Elite: “A group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege”. (Oxford Dictionaries)
So, do the doctors and pharmacists who can’t afford a bicycle, who Mr. Abt dealt with on a daily basis, qualify as members of the country’s elite? Or, indeed, the factory cleaners and machine operators employed by him. What about the mining engineers and workers he supplied with safety and other equipment and had trained in its use? The electrical engineers at power stations and the engineers at cement factories; the managers and workers at garment factories; and the farm workers, depicted here, in remote provinces, would all, no doubt, be surprised to hear they are considered by Ms. Cochrane to be part of the fabled Pyongyang elite.
To form your own opinion of just how ‘strange a character’ Mr. Abt is, or whether he is qualified to comment on the true state of affairs in North Korea, read: “A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom”.
June 30, 2014
DEBIT CARD TAXIS - IS NORTH KOREA ON THE WAY TO A MODERN,...
DEBIT CARD TAXIS - IS NORTH KOREA ON THE WAY TO A MODERN, CASH-FREE SOCIETY?
In June 2014, Felix Abt, the “Capitalist in North Korea”, paid a return visit to the country that had been his home for seven years. Taking a taxi to a business meeting in Pyongyang he was struck by the sign in the cab (see photo) which declared that the driver accepted payment by debit card.
When getting into the taxi it crossed his mind that this was something which one would rarely see in China and which he had never seen in Vietnam, his new home. Even in Washington D.C. taxis were required to accept credit cards as recently as in September 2013.
And he couldn’t help comparing this to North Korea before the terrible crisis years of the nineties: in the grip of a strict socialist command economy it had then been the most demonetized country on earth.
More on this and the widespread changes sweeping North Korea in Felix Abt’s book A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
ARE THESE OFFICE WORKERS IN SEOUL, SHANGHAI OR...
ARE THESE OFFICE WORKERS IN SEOUL, SHANGHAI OR SINGAPORE?
Actually, they are office workers in Pyongyang.
More about Felix Abt’s office staff and other North Korean workers is brought to light in his book A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
FAMILIES IN NORTH KOREA LOVE THEIR KIDS TOO !
A wedding...
FAMILIES IN NORTH KOREA LOVE THEIR KIDS TOO !
A wedding party in Pyongyang captured by Felix Abt.
Discover more about North Korean families, family life, family ties and parent/child relationships in his book A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
NORTH KOREA OPEN FOR BUSINESS
When North Korea started its...
NORTH KOREA OPEN FOR BUSINESS
When North Korea started its international trade the ‘Capitalist in North Korea’, Felix Abt, stood shoulder to shoulder with ambassadors from Russia, Mongolia, Germany and China as well as the DPRK Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs. Felix and the others can be seen here greeting the North Korean and foreign exhibitors.
Over the years, trade fairs in North Korea have substantially grown thanks largely to the presence of Chinese companies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKXz4W2tZ0). However, it’s striking that the presence of Western exhibitors is marginal.The Western embargo policies and hurdles, such as the prevention of normal commercial bank transfers by Western ‘financial sanctions’, are held to be largely responsible for dissuading many potential Western investors and traders.
Discover how Felix Abt was at the forefront of this, yet another North Korean ‘ first’, and all about trade and investment in the country in A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
QUALITY MEDICINE GETTING TO THE PEOPLE IN NORTH KOREA.
June...
QUALITY MEDICINE GETTING TO THE PEOPLE IN NORTH KOREA.
June 2014 marked the 10th anniversary of PyongSu J.V. Co. Ltd., the first foreign and North Korean invested pharmaceutical joint venture company. To help celebrate the occasion in Pyongyang was investor and former CEO of the company, Felix Abt, along with other investors and the company’s directors, managers and staff. (Seen here)
He congratulated Dr. Ju, Chairman at PyongSu, on the quality of the medicines being produced and the distribution efforts by the company to make them available to more and more ordinary people in North Korea.
Currently, all profits are reinvested back into the company to foster expansion.
Read how Felix Abt worked to overcome the many hurdles and obstacles that were faced as he struggled to turn this enterprise into its present success story in A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
