economy

The 2024 autumn commodity exhibition of the Pyongyang Underground Store ran from November 15 to 21.

The commodity show was aimed at stimulating the competitive zeal of the units producing light industrial goods so as to encourage them to produce a larger quantity of high-quality goods favoured by the people, thus contributing to improving the people’s living standards.

“During the exhibition the participating factories and enterprises have obtained new and innovative insights through the people’s opinions about their goods and successes and experience of other units. And they have become more confident that they can make various high-quality goods badly needed for the people and favoured by them,” said Jang Yong Il, section chief of the Ministry of Commerce.

On display were more than 706 000 goods in over 1 500 kinds, including foodstuffs, footwear and bags, which were made by some 200 units across the country. 

South Hamgyong and Kangwon provinces and the municipality of Nampho displayed goods produced by using locally-available raw materials, making the show more conspicuous.

What drew special attention were distinctive and various agricultural products of each region.

Kangwon Province presented over 30 kinds of agricultural products including bracken, platycodon, walnuts and dried persimmons. Its booth was crowded with visitors in the whole period of the show for the large amount and variety of exhibits. Particularly, housewives spoke highly of over a dozen kinds of dried seafood such as mackerel, squid, yellowtail and sand launce which it caught in its coastal areas.       

South Hamgyong Province put on show over 2 000 articles including kitchen utensils.  

Another eye-catcher was the booth of the Wonsan Leather Shoes Factory which is well known for the Maebongsan-brand footwear. 

The factory exhibited over 30 kinds of leather shoes for men and women which remarkably improved in quality this year. Unlike previously, it displayed goods of various colours and shapes made by using polyvinyl chloride based on emulsion polymerization. According to staffer Kim Il Chon, winter leather shoes became more varied in kind and shape and lighter and stronger than the past products.  

Various bags of the Pyolmuri bag production station gained public favour for their more refined colours, lightness and good preservation of shape.

The exhibition also drew many functional medicines including a protein-rich nutrient for boosting physical strength, which has mysterious effects for the growth of children and gives youthfulness to elderly people, and a toad-secretion cardiotonic tablet which is highly efficacious for preventing and treating various cancers.

Other crowd-pullers included the booth of the municipality of Kaesong which put on display traditional Koryo ceramics and that of Nampho which displayed many toys that suit children’s mind.