Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hugo_danner]

North Korea's Gold Mines
Wealth has attracted foreign interest over three millennia
2007-02-21 14:11 (KST)

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=346271&rel_no=1


Many people's impression of North Korea is that of a poor country unable to feed its own people and desperate for cash. Other than selling weapons, printing counterfeit money, and engaging in the production of illegal drugs, it is thought that it has very little means of obtaining hard currency. Yet, recently, it has received a great deal of the media's attention for its sale of gold to Thailand. Many people forget that North Korea has always had an abundance of mineral wealth -- including gold.

Korea's wealth had long been known not only in the Far East, but also in the Middle East. Ibn Khordadzbeh (844-848), an Arab, wrote that "there is a mountainous country named Silla and divided into numerous principalities. Gold abounds there." Another Arab, Ibn Rosteh, repeated this claim in the 10th century when he pronounced Silla was very rich with gold. Arab merchants traveled from their own countries, along with the Chinese, and traded with Korean merchants along the Yesong River during the Koryo period. Most of Korea's trade with these merchants was mainly gold and silver utensils, copper, ginseng, paper, fans...........

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=346271&rel_no=1

[Hollywoodaction]

...and that is one of the reasons Kim Jong Il and company don't want to lose control of North Korea. It's a good source of funds for their personal Swiss bank accounts.

[Rteacher]

I read an article (and posted the link in Current Events) about a month ago about North Korea's gold and other valuable mineral resources being part of the reason that the hurdle about NKs access to the banking system was overcome. They have the resources to engage in legitimate, lucrative business rather than counterfeiting and drug and arms dealing, but they require a lot of foreign investment to develop their mining capacity...

[CasperTheFriendlyGhost]

Zimbabwe has a lot of gold too.