Over half of these establishments in Liaoning province have closed their doors.
According to Daily NK, several North Korean restaurants in Dandong recently stopped operations, including Ryugyong Sikdang and Taebosan. Their staff and managers have returned to North Korea.
Unable to cover rent costs, North Korean trading companies and entities that managed these restaurants have largely shut down operations, transferring management rights to Chinese businesspeople. Some continue as North Korean-style restaurants, now employing Chinese staff.
These restaurants have lost Chinese customers due to their higher prices compared to ordinary eateries.
In Pyongyang, the U.S. dollar remains the most commonly used foreign currency, followed by the euro, yuan, and yen. The use of the Japanese yen slightly increased compared to the Chinese yuan in the beginning of this year.
Products made in North Korea are now being exported to China and appearing on store shelves there. North Korean traders have been actively seeking outlets for various North Korean products.
Currently, North Korean products can be found in stores across parts of Liaoning and Jilin provinces, areas where North Korean traders have established a significant presence.
The North Korean items displayed on the Chinese store’s shelves included Mount Kumgang Conditioner, made by the Mount Kumgang Joint Venture; Pyongyang Fermented Soy Sauce, produced at the Taedonggang Food Factory; Corn Soda from the Rason Ryongson General Processing Factory; and 500ml bottles of black tea produced in Namsa village, Rangrang district, Pyongyang.
Don’t insult the leaders. Don’t insult the ideology. And don’t judge.
These are the rules tour guides read out to Western tourists as they prepare to drive across the border into North Korea, arguably the most secretive and repressive country in the world.
“They’ve had five years to fix things. North Koreans are so sensitive about what they show tourists. If this is the best they can show, I dread to think what else is out there”, he said.
The regime’s photographs might make North Korea look clean and shiny, Joe said, but in person you realise “the roads are awful, the pavements are wobbly, and the buildings are weirdly constructed”. His hotel room was old-fashioned and filthy, he said, resembling “his grandma’s living room”. The whole window was cracked.
In a sign of increasing economic partnership between the two nations, construction of a Road Bridge has been planned, and a contract has been awarded to a contractor. The bridge is to be completed by the end of 2026.
North Korea’s only land connection to Russia is a single rail bridge, so a road crossing is expected to increase trade and tourism once it is connected to a road network.
A similar road bridge, the New Yalu, was built between North Korea and China about 10 years ago, but has yet to open because the Koreans have not built a road at their end. As a result, all traffic between the two countries must use the Sino–Korean Friendship Bridge, completed in 1943.
Building a road bridge has been a recurring feature of Russian-Korean relations.
“Rason, the oldest and largest of North Korea’s 29 economic development zones, has been central to the country’s push to attract foreign investment. It has one of North Korea’s first and biggest markets, was the site of the country’s first mobile network, and is the only place where North Korea legalised buying and selling homes in 2018, according to experts and North Korea’s government publications. Once a North Korean experiment in limited capitalism, the Rason Special Economic Zone appears to be the epicentre of the isolated country’s growing cooperation with Russia, experts say, including possible shipments of arms for the war in Ukraine.
In recent months, there have been clear signs that the area is poised for a comeback, with ships docking there for the first time since 2018, and satellite imagery suggesting a spike in trade from both the port and a rail line to Russia.
Although China – with its vastly larger economy and deeper historic ties with North Korea – might seem the obvious driver of a recovery in Rason, experts say the country’s deepening cooperation with Russia may make a more immediate impact.
“Now that North Korea and Russia are becoming very close against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, Russia might send more tourists to North Korea, which can reinvigorate tourism (in Rason),” said Jeong Eunlee, a North Korea economy expert at South Korea’s government-run Korea Institute for National Unification.
Koryo tours as well as Young Pioneers are the two main tourism organizations offering tours to North Korea. Most trips originate from either Vladivostok, or from Beijing. The tours are generally focused on Rason and Yanji, and Pyongyang and offer visits of factories, sea cucumber farms, and banking opportunities, Hae’an Park, Pipha Island, and even boat rides to see seals. Pyongyang tours include Pyongyang Grand Theatre, Kim Il Sung Square, Mt. Myohyang , Korean War Museum, Pohyon Temple, USS Pueblo, Manpok valley, Kaeson Funfair.
One of the more interesting tours is the annual Pyongyang marathon, to be held this year on April 11, 2025. The marathon attracts people from all over the world, to participate in a 5K, 10K, half marathon, or full marathon through North Korea’s capital, and downtown sites.
