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Amid speculation about the international community lifting sanctions against North Korea following the North’s summit with the US, there are growing hopes for inter-Korean economic cooperation. While railroads and tourism have been cited as the main areas for cooperation, others suggest that economic cooperation in information and communications technology should be prioritized, considering North Korea’s outstanding capacity for software development. Since the North’s greatest technological strengths can be linked to the Fourth Industrial Revolution – including the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence – South Korea should move forward preparations where possible, experts say.

South and North Korea already cooperated on information and communications technology about 15 or 16 years ago. Part of the first two seasons of “Pororo the Little Penguin” – a children’s cartoon that is popular not only in South Korea but also overseas – were produced in collaboration between South Korea’s Hanaro Telecom (currently known as SK Broadband) and North Korea’s Samcholli General Corporation between 2002 and 2004.

South Korean companies have also outsourced software development to North Korean programmers. In 2001, Hanabiz.com established the Hana Program Center in the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea’s Pyongyang Information Center. Various kinds of software developed at the Hana Program Center were sold until the Seoul adopted the “May 24 Measures,” economic sanctions against North Korea, in 2010.

Companies that have attempted this kind of economic cooperation were lavish in their praise of this approach. Lee Sang-san, chairman of the board at Handysoft and a former developer of telecommunication protocols for the Hana Program Center, was excited by the prospect of renewed economic cooperation.

“You might be skeptical if you haven’t tried this, but North Korean programmers are extremely talented – they were very satisfactory business partners, and we were very sorry when the project came to an end. If economic cooperation resumes, there is no doubt that we’ll jump right back into it,” Lee said.

Just as Lee said, North Korea is regarded as having an extremely outstanding capability for software development. Talented individuals are chosen at a young age for intensive training in information and communications technology.

“While North Korea may fall behind when it comes to device penetration and commercialization, their technology is really outstanding thanks to the education given to talented young people. Their Linux- and Android-based applications and embedded software can be used right away,” said Kim Jong-seon, senior analyst for the Science and Technology Policy Institute.

“In the early 2000s, North Korea was working on the areas of machine learning and voice recognition, and its ability to develop algorithms was much better than South Korea’s at the time. Even now, there might be certain areas where we can learn from them,” Lee said. Embedded software, voice recognition and algorithms are areas with immediate applications for the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, regarded as key technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Since taking power, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has stressed the development of cutting-edge technology as a key goal, announcing a five-year plan for technological development that ran from 2013 to 2017. North Koreans have developed the “Red Star” operating system for smart devices and a tablet computer that comes equipped with this operating system, and more recently, they have begun making electronic transactions and payments (using the Narae cash card) on the local intranet. This means that while North Korea lags behind in terms of infrastructure, including in the telecommunications sector, there are similarities in the areas where exchange is possible with South Korea.

But economic cooperation in those areas is not an option for now because of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council last year after North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile test launches. These sanctions ban the establishment of collaborative bodies and joint ventures with North Korea, as well as the employment of North Korean workers. Another stumbling block is the export administration regulations (EAR) of the US Commerce Department, which prohibit equipment that contains even a single US-made component from being shipped to North Korea.

Because of this, experts agree that joint research and surveys and humanitarian exchange should begin even before sanctions on North Korea are lifted. “Because sanctions are so tough right now, we ought to start working in the areas where that is currently possible. Some options would be archiving North Korean cultural heritages through virtual reality, teleconferences for divided families, technical education for North Korean workers and joint production of broadcast programming,” said Kim Cheol-wan, former senior analyst for the Korea Information Society Development Institute.

Others call for efforts to find a way to lift the sanctions or make exceptions to them. “We need to be looking for a way to end the sanctions themselves. Considering that Chinese companies are doing business with North Korean programmers right now, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why we can’t do the same. If we give it some thought, there’s bound to be a way,” said Kim Jong-seon.

By Park Tae-woo, staff reporter

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