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N. Korea creates 'special economic zone'
From Jaime FlorCruz
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Eager to send more positive signals to the outside world, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has approved the creation of a "special administrative region" in Sinuiju City, in northwestern North Korea on the border with China. It was announced Monday that Yang Bin, 39, one of the richest business tycoons in China, will be officially named chief executive of the region on Tuesday. Yang -- a dutch citizen of Chinese birth -- has built a $900 million business listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The autonomous enclave is being created with the intention of allowing unfettered capitalism to lure international investors. "It will be a totally capitalist region" Yang said in a CNN interview. "It will have its own legislative, judicial and executive powers without any interference from the [North Korean] central government." It is hoped that international investors will be attracted by the cheap land and labor, low taxes and good geographic location said Yang, and he envisions it becoming a financial, industrial, commercial and tourism center. Yang said he is the right person to head the new economic zone, because of his Chinese heritage, his European Union citizenship and China's close ties to North Korea. "This experiment has to succeed because I don't think the North Korean people can afford a failure at a time when the country's economy is already very fragile," Yang said. Changing societyThe move by Kim is the latest sign that the isolated nation may be tilting away from the socialist dogma it has followed for over 50 years. Last January, U.S. President George W. Bush labeled North Korea -- along with Iran and Iraq -- part of what he called an "axis of evil" whose desire to develop weapons of mass destruction threatened world peace. The "axis" tag sparked a furious reaction from Pyongyang and cast a new chill over relations between the United States and North Korea. In recent months however, there have been signs of a thaw with a brief meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the North Korean foreign minister in Brunei at the end of July. The meeting was followed by suggestions that the U.S. might be prepared to send an envoy to Pyongyang. The creation of the new economic region also follows moves by Pyongyang last July to liberalize pricing and wage systems and also the relaunching of normalization talks with South Korea and Japan.
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