Birth Anniversary: Vendors Offer and Oecd Group

birth anniversary: Officially, North Korea denies it is reforming its economy and declares the country remains guided by Juche, or self-reliance, philosophy of founder Kim Il-Sung whose 105th birth anniversary is being marked this weekend, according to The Japan Times. But under his grandson Kim Jong Un the third generation of the dynasty economic change is quietly happening in the impoverished, nuclear-armed country, analysts say. At markets, vendors offer imported household goods even Coca-Cola and in state-owned department stores hard currency is openly exchanged at black-market rates. The North was once better off than the South, but decades of mismanagement saw it descend into stagnation and food shortages, while its neighbor propelled itself into the OECD group of leading economies. We are a socialist country so we stick to our socialist principle economically, said Ri Sun Chol, chief of the economic research institute of the North's Academy of Social Sciences. Pyongyang remains almost entirely devoid of commercial advertising, its wide avenues instead lined with propaganda posters of heroic soldiers and striving workers, or slogans such as Let us follow the decisions of the 7th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.