"Often called the Hermit Kingdom, the repressive regime of North Korea makes everyday life hard. Ju Chang Yang, who now lives in South Korea, describes her former life: "In North Korea life was a challenge. It was a life and death challenge" (ABC News, 2023).
It is hard to imagine that such conditions would prove to be a training ground for future entrepreneurs, but Sokeel Park, Director of Research & Strategy and South Korea Country Director for Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an international non-governmental organization, explains:
The North Korean economy was one of the most demonetized, the most tightly controlled government planned economies of the twentieth century. But with the famine of the 1990s, that government control system and government provision system broke down, and it meant that North Korean people had to fend for themselves."