Lifting sanctions could help DPRK reform

I have been here before. Yes, I can remember that anticipation on the cusp of a moment when an economy is about to transition and take that tectonic shift from planning to market. I saw it in China in the early 1980s, and again in Vietnam and Laos in the 1990s. That feeling of nostalgia returns with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The pattern is likely to be the same.

While the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un is held in Singapore, the DPRK is a nation hoping to come in from the cold. Rudi Sirr, a special economic adviser to Pyongyang has said there has been a very distinct shift within the country. Kim has surrounded himself with advisers and key policymakers who have mostly studied and lived abroad. The DPRK is now looking outward, not inward. This is the biggest change.

More specifically, Pyongyang is looking to the models of opening-up and reform adopted by China, and later by Vietnam and Laos. Clearly the need for cheap labor will be a magnate for investment when the DPRK's economy begins to open up. Determination by both the Republic of Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un to proceed in direct economic engagement, regardless of the roller coaster about-face decisions or Twitter feeds of Trump, heralds an era of cross-border investments that is reminiscent of the days when Hong Kong led all global investments on the Chinese mainland focusing on the special economic zones of the southern region.