Friday, December 29, 2017

Growing Technological Trade in DPRK
It is a major trade policy of the DPRK to upgrade the trade structure in the direction of increasing the exports of processed goods and raising the rate of technological and service trade.

Over the past decades the government consolidated the material and technical foundations of the national economy in order to develop it into an independent economy with a diverse and comprehensive structure which is capable of meeting most of the material needs for economic construction and the people’s living with domestic production.

In recent years it has rapidly developed science and technology in line with the requirements of the knowledge economy in order to establish Juche-oriented production processes in the major economic sectors and improve the sectoral structures of industry.

The country set up the Juche-based system for producing iron and lines for producing fertilizer and vinalon, and built modern manufacturers of machinery and electronic and automation elements and devices to make cutting-edge equipment so as to guarantee the country’s economic development.

Last year it succeeded in the launch of earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong 4, an aggregation of advanced science and technology, and in a static firing test of a high-thrust motor for a new-type stationary satellite carrier rocket, thereby opening up a broad avenue to space exploration.

Fully-automated, model production systems of Korean style were established, an electrode production technique for UHP electric arc furnace perfected and a world-level acrylic paint production line set up in the course of putting the major industrial sectors on Juche, modern and IT basis.

Success has been made in perfecting the production lines of a new model of tractor and other vehicles and multi-purpose farm machines, and a trade cargo ship was built and launched.

Sci-tech achievements of great significance in developing the national economy and improving the people’s living standards were made one after another, including the establishment of a salt production method based on underground ultra-brine and the breeding of high-yielding strains that make it possible to ramp up agricultural production.

Last year the economic growth rate was higher than the previous year, and the total industrial output value for the first quarter of this year increased nearly 1.5 times higher than that in the same period of last year.

The government works to raise the rate of technological trade by boosting the country’s science and technology as a whole by drawing on the high and sustainable growth rate of the independent national economy.

It channels efforts into the development of such core, basic technologies as IT, nanotechnology and bioengineering with international competitive edge and such pivotal and appealing domains as new material and energy technologies and space and nuclear technologies.

Special stress is put on promising research projects with certain foundations and good results are registered by building on the successes already made.

Collaboration is promoted between producers and scientific research institutes, and enterprises expand technological trade by relying on their powerful sci-tech development forces.

Lots of establishments have built up bases for intellectual products development and technological trade and increased investment into them, including the Pyongyang Information Technology Trading Corporation, Korea Kanghung and Achim technology trading companies and High-Tech Bioengineering Technology, Pyongyang Mechanical Technology and Songchongang Pharmaceutical companies.

On technological exchange markets including the national intellectual product exhibition hall, registered intellectual products are traded between research establishments and enterprises at prices agreed upon, and external exchange and cooperation are conducted widely in such technological fields as R&D, transfer, introduction and advanced technology service as well as development of products.

A nationwide diffusion network has been established centring on the Sci-Tech Complex, a grand house for all-people study and multifunctional hub of scientific and technological dissemination, going a long way towards developing technological trade.

In this year of science and education when the universal 12-year compulsory education has been enforced in an all-round way, technical senior middle schools have newly been instituted across the country and educational conditions and environment at colleges and schools have been given a facelift.

While increasing investment into the sci-tech fields, the government bolsters up the protection of intellectual property to provide favourable environment and conditions for permitted trade in patented technologies, technical know-how and trademark right and for the provision of technical service.

Invention has been safeguarded and encouraged by the long-standing legislation for the protection of property rights including laws on invention, trademark, industrial design, copyright and appellation of origin.

The DPRK joined the World Intellectual Property Organization in Juche 63 (1974) and signed and has sincerely implemented such international conventions as the Madrid agreement concerning the protection and international registration of marks, the Paris convention for the protection of industrial property, the patent cooperation treaty and the Lisbon agreement for the protection of literary and artistic works.

Patented technologies are legally protected by lots of patent and trademark attorneys.

Advanced technologies in different fields are registered as patents or knowhow to increase the range and volume of transactions and a variety of activities for permitted trade in trademark, copyright and adjoining rights are carried on.

Last year different establishments developed advanced technologies relating to various products to register them in the national lists and in the WIPO, thus increasing their exports. They included large-size mining equipment, electric rotary machines, precision machines, electronic goods, software, medicines, biotechnological products, the new materials of special alloys, health foods and sports goods.

This year, too, witnesses brisk activities to register latest technologies as patents and knowhow and to export them.

The government encourages relevant sectors to conduct technological trade and sci-tech exchange in a diverse way so as to introduce advanced foreign technological achievements in time to suit the country’s specific conditions, while putting main stress on strengthening the independence and Juche character of the national economy.

It institutes and enforces legislation to help trading companies, enterprises and research institutes conduct technological trade smoothly, including laws on foreign trade, technological import and export, and joint venture and regulations on introduction of foreign investment and latest technologies.

Research institutes and universities are encouraged to build and run bases for making cutting-edge products so as to resolve the fund problem by themselves.

The Unjong High-Tech Development Zone, Kangnyong International Green Model Zone and other economic development zones enforce the preferential system to introduce cutting-edge technologies, while conducting brisk activities to create environment favourable for development.

Laws, systems and mechanisms are in place for those zones to give preferential treatment to those foreign investors that introduce advanced technologies and modern production equipment, in terms of taxation, land utilization, and entry and exit of personnel and materials.

The Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea set it as the main goal of scientific and technological development to make the country take an honourable place among the ranks of the most advanced nations in the world in the near future in terms of overall scientific and technological strength and decided on a grandiose strategy to build a knowledge-based economy in which science and technology are integrated with production and hi-tech industry plays the leading role in promoting economic growth.

The DPRK will as ever rapidly develop its overall science and technology in keeping with the world trend of sci-tech development and conduct brisk technological trade in a diverse way, thereby expanding and boosting external economic relations.

                                                             Jo Chang Jun, candidate academician, professor, PhD and
                                          chief of the trade economics section at the University of National Economy

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