Commerce in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Commerce in the DPRK is socialist commerce. It is in essence supply work for the people.

As required by the socialist commerce of serving the people by satisfying their material and cultural demands, the country is giving full play to the superiority of this type of commerce on the principle of enhancing its role as supplier.

The commerce of the country can be divided into state commerce and cooperative commerce according to the forms of ownership and into selling of consumer goods, public catering and procurement according to the economic missions of products and forms of organization of their circulation.

The state commerce plays an important role in increasing production quickly and improving the material and cultural standard of living of the working people by linking production with consumption on a planned basis. It also contributes to the fast development of industry and agriculture and the strengthening of the worker-peasant alliance by realizing the economic link between urban and rural areas and between industry and agriculture.

The cooperative commerce consists of producers’ cooperatives, fishery cooperatives and direct retail stores run by some cooperative farms.

The supply of consumer goods to the working people constitutes an important part in the internal division of the socialist commerce.