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Jim Rogers

“If North Korea introduces reforms and openness, it will achieve rapid economic growth in the double digits or higher.”

Speaking in an Oct. 2 interview on the Traffic Broadcasting System (TBS) program “Kim Eo-jun’s News Factory,” world-renowned investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said North Korea is currently “in a similar situation to China when Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978.”

“The positive changes happening in North Korea will make the entire Korean Peninsula a very suitable target for investment,” he predicted.

Rogers also offered a positive appraisal of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s policies for their role in guiding North Korea toward reforms and openness.

“If President Moon’s North Korea policies succeed, South and North Korea will be able to save a great deal of money and bring tremendous peace not just to the Korean Peninsula but the world,” he said.

“I sincerely hope and believe President Moon’s North Korea policies will succeed,” he added.

Rogers pointed to North Korea’s abundant workforce and natural resources as factors making it an appealing investment target.

“With [North Korean leader Kim Jong-un] attempting changes, the combination of South Korean knowledge, capital, and know-how with North Korea’s human and natural resources will make a tremendous Korea that even Japan won’t be able to match,” he predicted.

In 2015, Roger drew attention in South Korea by saying he would invest his entire fortune in North Korea if sanctions are lifted during a CNN interview.

“I got a lot of skeptical reactions from people around me when I made those remarks, but I also had people laughing at me when I said in 1980 that we should invest in China,” he recalled.

“New ideas that other people haven’t thought of are the most appropriate places for investment,” he said.

While Rogers has not yet invested in North Korea because of sanctions, he said that he could invest in all areas there once the sanctions are lifted.

“Purely in industry terms, there are the tourism and distribution industries, and with so many mines in North Korea that haven’t been developed, you could think about mining too,” he said.

“There are a lot of different options, including electricity and computers,” he added.

At the same time, he predicted the US would be slower than other countries to relax its sanctions against the North. In historical terms, other countries were the first and the US to last to lift sanctions against countries such as China, Vietnam, and Cuba, he noted.

If North Korea achieves economic growth through reforms and openness and South Korea reaps corresponding rewards, all of the surrounding countries apart from Japan could experience economic prosperity, Rogers predicted. While China and Russia would experience positive effects from rising trade volumes, Japan would be left out of the trend because its costly structure makes it a poor environment for business, he explained.

By Kim Su-heon, staff reporter

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