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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| Norks close down dollar shops: report | |
| 2009-12-07 | |
| SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea has closed down all shops and restaurant dealing in foreign currencies following a sudden money reform, a news report said on Saturday. The Joongang daily also quoted a North Korean businessman engaged in trade with China as saying that people are buying necessities to spend their old money before the deadline Sunday. North Korea on Monday sharply revalued its currency for the first time in 17 years "All shops and restaurants accepting foreign exchanges were closed," the businessman was quoted as telling the daily in China's northeastern city of Dandong near the border with North Korea. "People in Pyongyang are stocking up like mad on necessities," he said. One kilo of rice which used to fetch 1,700 won in the old won surged to 15,000 won as North Koreans scrambled to get rid of their old won. "Local officials were going around knocking on every door, urging people to exchange for new currency before Sunday," he said. A senior official of the communist state's central bank told a pro-Pyongyang newspaper published in Japan that all shops and restaurants in the North will be banned from accepting foreign currencies. The official, Jo Song-Hyon, told the Joson Sinbo that North Koreans were given until Sunday to change their old money into new currency at a rate of 100 old won to one won. "Old banknotes which fail to be exchanged into new ones in the given period will become automatically null and void, as well as banknotes which have been illegally diverted abroad," he said. Shops and restaurants serving foreigners and Koreans living abroad will also accept only new money, departing from their old practices of accepting foreign exchanges including dollars, yen or euros, he added.
The official exchange rate is 135 won to the dollar but the black market rate is between 2,000 and 3,000. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 Silly CrazyFool! ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-12-07 23:02 |
| #4 They till work... :) |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-12-07 18:35 |
| #3 Just making sure comments till work... |
| Posted by: Fred 2009-12-07 17:32 |
| #2 Should have put those dollars in gold coins. Oh wait..... Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates" by U.S. citizens. The Order required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of Executive Order 6102 was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. The price of gold from the treasury for international transactions was thereafter raised to $35 an ounce. The value of the dollar was thenceforth determined by its value relative to other national currencies. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-12-07 05:49 |
| #1 So a North Korean families life's savings is worth 100 kilos of rice. 200 kilos if they are one of the few with a bank account. That's about $100 worth of rice. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-12-07 00:46 |