Scant interest predicted for “hermit kingdom”
Could North Korea get into the casino game? According to the Russia Today website, the answer is yes—with a little help from foreign investors.
RT.com reports that the program would link North Korea’s Kosong Port in the Mount Kumyang region to the Russian Far East and Southeast Asia. Government guidelines require an investment of US$10 million to $20 million over the next 10 years; a proposal posted on the Mount Kumgang website states that it would take $20 million to buy the 30,000-ton Royale Star, a Soviet-era cruise ship with room for 1,000 passengers.
The ship or ships would run on two routes, one from the mountains of North Korea to the Russian city of Vladivostok and the other to Southeast Asia.
The Yonhap news agency reports that North Korea hopes to “broaden and diversify international tourism” with the program. Yonhap cited an unnamed South Korean professor who said the casino element of the plan is “very unconventional” and may indicate a cash grab by the dictatorship, which is facing international sanctions for its nuclear weapons development programs and human rights abuses. According to a United Nations report on North Korea, two of five North Koreans are malnourished and 70 percent of the population relies on aid to secure food.
The Financial Times said “cash-strapped North Korea” hopes an international cruise ship would boost tourism, though gambling is illegal in North Korea.
“I strongly doubt there will be foreign investors who are willing to invest money in North Korea given the current situation,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, told the Times. “North Korea has been interested in attracting investors to the tourism sector since 2014 in order to cope with international sanctions, but they haven’t been very active given other developments.”
