Understanding Kim Jong Un’s Economic Policymaking - Robert L. Carlin and

In order to decisively raise the level of the country’s productivity development, [we] must first give a boost to the leading sectors and basic industrial sectors of the people’s economy, which are in charge of the leading processes of social production and are the basic sectors of all industrial development, such as the machine industry.20 An article published in the Journal of Kim Il Sung Univer. [...] To the contrary, the bulk of the articles in the journals we studied focused on the opposite: how to increase “creativity” in banks, lessen rigid control from the center, and make space for bank officials—and the sector as a whole—to respond to conditions and developments at the local and enterprise levels without undue restrictions. [...] In his New Year’s speech in 2013, Kim gave his first official nod to reform by mentioning the need to “steadily improve and perfect the methods of economic management.”53 The further guidelines he provided at the party plenum two months later laid the groundwork for the media and academic journals to disseminate and expound on the ideas and principles of the new reforms. [...] The articles then moved on to the three main points of the Kim Jong Un-led “economic management methods of our style.” SERMS was mentioned for the first time in a Hakpo article at the end of 2014, but it was not until the spring of 2018, after North Korea shifted from byungjin to a policy focusing on the economy and as the country was embarking on a path of diplomacy, that the journals started dis. [...] With the spirit of [believing in] the absoluteness and the unconditionality of the party’s line and policies, the Cabinet must carry on the economic organization work down to the last detail and strengthen guidance on economic work.