North Korea pressing its own impoverished people for cash to fund 2012 extravaganza

By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com

SEOUL — North Korea’s totalitarian regime is reaching out to its suffering population for foreign currencies, gold and other valuables they might possess to help finance massive political projects marking the centennial next April of the birth of the nation’s founder, Kim Il-Sung.

North Koreans pay their respects before a monument of Kim Il-Sung at Mansu Hill in Pyongyang on April 14.

The North’s state banks have offered to buy U.S. dollars and other foreign currencies from its residents at a black market rate of 2,800 North Korean won per U.S. dollar, almost 30 times higher than the official rate of 100 won, according to a source here.

The reclusive country conducted a currency revaluation late 2009 that wiped out the savings of a growing lower-middle class and hurting the burgeoning private markets, which set the rate of exchanging the greenback for the local won to 100.

But endemic inflation boosted the market to 3,000 won per U.S. dollar.

“The regime has offered to buy the U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies at market rates at the risk of further worsening inflation,” the source said.

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