Index

Women in Business & Ministry of Finance workshops

Choson Exchange workshops for business and government

I visited North Korea in late March 2013 to conduct two seminars organised by Choson Exchange (http://chosonexchange.org), a Singapore-registered non-governmental organisation that aims to support the long-term economic development of North Korea through the sharing of business and economic knowledge with promising individuals in the DPRK. 

Lean Six Sigma - Women In Business workshop

  • Possibly the first ever Lean Six Sigma training conducted in the DPRK
  • Women in Business workshop participants, Taedonggang Diplomatic Club
The first workshop I conducted was on Lean Production as part of a Women In Business program. The Women In Business program is one of Choson Exchange's key activities this year and includes workshops held in North Korea as well as study trips abroad for selected participants. Apart from my session on Lean Production, the March workshop also included seminars on the changing role of women in business, marketing and business strategy. There were about 40 participants, predominantly female, from various organisations including the Joint Venture and Investment Committee, Biotechnology Development Office, Haeyang Trading Company and Ryonmot Technology Development Company. The workshop was conducted in English with Korean interpreters from the Foreign Language Publishing Company.

Many thanks to Danilo Sato and Francisco Trindade for granting me permission to use their Lean Lego Simulation Game (http://www.dtsato.com/blog/work/lean-lego-game) for this exercise. There was definitely some reluctance from the participants and interpreters (Play a game ? We're professionals, why should we play with children's toys ?) but as always, this simulation was a good illustration of the principles of Lean Production.  I must acknowledge that Lean is one of those things that must be learnt by doing and that the main contribution of classroom teaching is really to establish a vocabulary and schemas for practitioners to actually go out and improve their processes. While most of the participants were from services industries and were unsure of how Lean would apply in their organisations, several seemed to be quite experienced and very aware of the challenges that Lean tries to address. Hopefully, I was able to give them more tools and inspiration to solve the problems that they are facing in their businesses.

Ministry of Finance Workshop - Inflation

Simultaneously with the Women In Business workshop, we also ran a workshop on inflation for officials from the Ministry of Finance and other financial institutions. The former Tokyo Bureau Chief for the Economist presented on recent global economic developents and delivered a macro view of inflation while I discussed the nuts and bolts of how Singapore measures inflation, starting from the Household Expenditure Survey to the Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) for different income groups. 
  • Preparing for the workshop under the guidance of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung and Generalissimo Kim Jong Il. I would assume that the expenditure baskets of the elite and that of the workers are very different in DPRK too.
  • Workshop was conducted in English, with interpreter from Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies (right)
    • Participants were mostly from MOF with others from the Foreign Trade Bank, Ilsim International Bank, Central Bank and the Ministry of Communications
    From what I could gather, there are no official CPI or household expenditure statistics in DPRK, which is hardly surprising given that so much of an ordinary North Korean's consumption (rice, housing, education, healthcare) is provided by the State as non-cash compensation. For that matter, how meaningful or reliable is wage data in such a system ?

    The MOF workshops were held at the Great Study Hall of the People, which is kind of like a National Library. Sessions were held in a computer lab (above) and in a hall that does triple duty as stacks for their collection on International Organisations, an exhibition hall (also mostly used by IOs, I think) and a classroom.

    • Ministry of Finance officials at a workshop on inflation and global economic developments.
        Participants were from the Ministry of Finance and it was very interesting to see the range of responses generated during small group discussions on appropriate policy responses for a hypothetical island-country facing economic crisis: Everything from textbook Washington Consensus "liberalise everything" answers to old-school "Let's impose price controls". All the groups did agree on the need to diversify the economy and increase efficiency though. Just as in the Women in Business workshop, there was far greater interest in just learning about how things work in the outside world, than there was in theory.
        I'm not sure how much the participants were able to relate to Henry's explanation of Purchasing Power Parity using the Big Mac Index though.

        • The Big Mac Index has arrived in Pyongyang. When will the first Golden Arches franchise open ?
        • Geoffery having a working lunch, going over his materials with our interpreters from the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies