hankyoreh

Global investor Jim Rogers said he would invest his entire fortune in North Korea.

The remarks from Rogers, 73, came during a May 5 interview on CNN Money. When asked if he would be willing to invest in North Korea, Rogers replied, “If I could put all of my money into North Korea, I would.”

“I would not have invested in Kim Jong-un’s father or grandfather by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s like saying that in 1980 you shouldn’t invest in China because of Mao Zedong,” he added.

“Mao was dead and Deng Xiaoping was making huge changes. They are making huge changes in North Korea. The kid [North Korean leader Kim Jong-un] is making astonishing changes,” Rogers concluded.

Rogers is famed for realizing a 4200% rate of return over ten years after co-founding the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s. He is also highly interested in investing in Asia and agriculture. In 2007, he moved to Singapore from New York for what he described as the better investment opportunities in Asia; he has also taught Chinese to his daughter.

Rogers sent a similar message in the interview.

“I’m glad I live here in Asia,” he said.

Rogers also said he was “very bullish” on the Chinese market and that Russia “is the most depressed stock market in the world.”

“I’m buying Russian shares. I recently bought into agriculture,” he added.

The remarks are not Rogers’s first expression of interest in North Korea. In his book “Street Smarts,” he describes a 2007 visit to Pyongyang and writes that North Korea, while similar to Myanmar in its lack of electricity and other infrastructure, offered more investment opportunities.

By Cho Ki-won, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]