[72]: 24 Beginning in the mid-1920s, the Japanese colonial administration in Korea concentrated its industrial-development efforts in the comparatively under-populated and resource-rich northern portion of the country, resulting in a considerable movement of people northward from the agrarian southern provinces of the Korean Peninsula.

[73] This trend did not reverse until after the end in 1945 of the Second World War, when more than 2 million Koreans moved from North to South following the division of Korea into Soviet and American military zones of administration.

The diversion of resources to build highways, theatres, hotels, airports, and other facilities to host the Thirteenth World Festival of Youth and Students in July 1989 must have had a negative impact on industrial and agricultural development, although the expansion and improvement of social infrastructure have resulted in some long-term economic benefits.

Influenced by Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward Policy, Kim and other members of the KWP Central Committee offered "on-the-spot guidance" (현지지도, hyŏnji chido) and spent two months instructing and interacting with the workers.

[33] Perhaps more important than involving administrative personnel in on-site inspections was the increased use of material incentives, such as paid vacations, special bonuses, honorific titles, and monetary rewards.

Actual improvement in the agricultural sector began with the adoption of the subteam contract system as a means of increasing peasant productivity by adjusting individual incentives to those of the immediate, small working group.

Introduced in 1958 and fashioned after China's Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Ch'ŏllima Movement organized the labour force into work teams and brigades to compete at increasing production.

The "socialist emulation" among the industrial sectors, enterprises, farms, and work teams under the Ch'ŏllima Movement frantically sought to complete the First Five-Year Plan (1957–1960) but instead created chaotic disruptions in the economy.

[33]: 123–127 Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the principal source of external support, North Korea announced in December 1993 a three-year transitional economic policy placing primary emphasis on agriculture, light industry, and foreign trade.

However, lack of fertilizer, natural disasters, and poor storage and transportation practices caused the country to fall more than a million tons per year short of grain self-sufficiency.

[18] In 2020 North Korea halted its economic reforms that were seen as a risky gambit to unleash market forces, and the government shifted back its focus towards more central planning and state control over the economy.

Under this system, provincial authorities are responsible for the operating costs of institutions and enterprises not under direct central government control, such as schools, hospitals, shops, and local consumer goods production.

[96] The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Kim's previous propaganda has shifted focus toward patriotism and the economy, and improving its relationships with China, South Korea, and the United States.

In the video, brief images of troops, fighter jets releasing blue, red, and white smoke, scattered pictures of civilians, new high-rise apartments in the capital, fireworks displays, and even students in their school uniforms can all be seen at the same event.

[33] In April 1982, Kim Il Sung announced a new economic policy giving priority to increased agricultural production through land reclamation, development of the country's infrastructure—especially power plants and transportation facilities—and reliance on domestically produced equipment.

[105] The North Korean motor vehicle production establishes military, industrial and construction goals, with private car ownership by citizens remaining on low demand.

Having Soviet origins (the subsequent practice of cloning foreign specimens, and a recent automobile joint-venture), North Korea has developed a wide-range automotive industry with production of all types of vehicles.

Several reissues of banknotes in recent years suggest that citizens are inclined to hoard rather than bank any savings that they make from their incomes; reportedly they now also prefer foreign currency.

[135] Farming is concentrated in the flatlands of the four west coast provinces, where a longer growing season, level land, adequate rainfall, and good irrigated soil permit the most intensive cultivation of crops.

The mountains contain the bulk of North Korea's forest reserves while the foothills within and between the major agricultural regions provide lands for livestock grazing and fruit tree cultivation.

[33] In the 1990s, the decreasing ability to carry out mechanized operations (including the pumping of water for irrigation), as well as lack of chemical inputs, was clearly contributing to reduced yields and increased harvesting and post-harvest losses.

Deprived of industrial inputs, including fertilizers, pesticides, and electricity for irrigation, agricultural output also started to decrease even before North Korea had a series of natural disasters in the mid-1990s.

As a consequence of the government's policy of establishing economic self-sufficiency, the North Korean economy has become increasingly isolated from that of the rest of the world, and its industrial development and structure do not reflect its international competitiveness.

During the reconstruction period after the Korean War, there were opportunities for extensive economic growth—attainable through the communist regime's ability to marshall idle resources and labor and to impose a low rate of consumption.

Toward the end of the 1950s, as reconstruction work was completed and idle capacity began to diminish, the economy had to shift from the extensive to the intensive stage, where the simple communist discipline of marshaling underutilized resources became less effective.

This shift was prompted by concern over the military takeover in South Korea by General Park Chung Hee (1961–1979), escalation of the United States involvement in Vietnam, and the widening Sino-Soviet split.

However, according to analyst Benjamin R Young: "In the end, this approach proved ineffective, and Pyongyang never succeeded in developing robust trade relations with the Global South — a situation that appears unlikely to change anytime soon".

TV commercials for Samsung's Anycall cell phone featuring North Korean dancer Cho Myong-ae and South Korea's Lee Hyo-ri were first broadcast on June 11, 2006.

[173] Some South Korean companies launched joint ventures in areas like animation and computer software, and Chinese traders have done a booming business back and forth across the China–North Korea border.

This film was put on a YouTube channel called "BusinessNK" and could be watched together with a number of other videos on foreign joint ventures as well as other investment and business activities in North Korea.