영어 논문 한 편, 출판했습니다.
금컵체육인종합식료공장이라는 2010년에 새로 설립된 기업에서 진행된 기술혁신에 대한 논문입니다.
북한의 식량 생산 자체가 아니라, 이를 기반으로 하는 'Food Industry'의 변화를 통해 최소한 1990년대 수준의 식량문제에서는 벗어나지 않았나 하는 이야기를 했습니다.
그리고 북의 변화는 2014년 기업소법에 드러난 것과 같은 기업소의 자율성 강화와 2009년 이후 첨단돌파전략 수행 이후 군수의 민수 전환 프로그램의 본격적 가동으로 해석할 수 있음을 주장했습니다.
또한 북한에서 생산된 문헌을 활용하는 빈도가 떨어지는 다른 북한에 대한 영어 논문과 달리, 북한에서 생산된 문헌을 철저히 분석하고, 구체적인 기업소의 활동, 그곳을 방문한 외부인의 의견, 그리고 그들과 인터뷰 등을 통해 구체적인 정보를 최대한 모아서 분석하려 했습니다.
The Korean Journal for the History of Science 44-2 (2022), 321-338,
Company-Level Technological Innovation in DPR Korea: Focusing on Kumkhop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople
Company-Level Technological Innovation in DPR Korea: Focusing on Kumkhop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople
The ‘Kumkhop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople’ has launched techno-logical innovation policies in North Korea's food industry since 2010. The poli-cies have been connected to the national development strategies, which means transferring milit
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서론만 올립니다. 전체 내용과 본문은 논문을 직접 봐주세요.
(영어로 쓴 글을 읽기 힘드신 분은 따로 연락을 주시면, 한글로 써 둔 초고를 보여드릴 수도 있습니다.)
Introduction
In the late 1990s, a severe food shortage in North Korea caused many people to suffer from starvation. The North Korean economic system was in a difficult situa-tion due to severe natural disasters, the collapse of the socialist block, and the death of the supreme leader. Not only did some parts of the system cause problems, but the entire national economy was in danger of collapsing. It was the right moment for real innovation of the entire national economic system; partial innovation would not be enough. Accordingly, North Korea adopted a new economic development strategy pri-oirtizing science and technology.1 North Korea began reconstructing the ‘National (Technological) Innovation System’ from its base. In particular, the development strategy clarified the sequence. Firstly, national security should be guaranteed by developing defense science and technology. Following that, the circumstances of civilian life could be improved by transferring advanced military science and tech-nology into the production of domestic goods.2 As a result, by the late 2010s, the North Korean economy was able to escape from the situation in which its survival was at risk.3 There are still many shortcomings in North Korea’s economy, which means that talking about high growth or prosperity is not possible. However, the living conditions of ordinary people seem to be grad-ually improving. In 2019, cereal production surpassed the highest record of 6.65 million tons.4 The year of the lowest grain production since 2010 was 2018 at 4.95 million tons. Even this amount exceeded the minimum amount required for the food distribution system (4.2 million tons) by 18%.5 Accordingly, it indicates that North Korea had probably reached a level at which it could solve its own food problems. Since the end of the 2000s, innovations related to food production and innovations in the food industry have been launched together. Food production enterprises have been modernized rapidly. New production systems, such as International Organiza-tion for Standardization (ISO) and Good manufacturing practices (GMP), were adopted, which meet international standards. Despite the period of prioritizing the military sector, the food industry also became a significant focus for national support and intensively pursued innovative policies. The emphasis on company-level inno-vation activities from Kim Jong Un also greatly influenced this change. As a result, it was said that domestic products outpaced foreign products when it came to food sales.6
In this paper, the effort is made to depict the changes in North Korea’s economic policies through the activities of ‘a company’ – which is a real agent of economic activities. Such effort avoids the mistake of focusing only on macroscopic national policies and thereby losing a sense of reality due to excessive abstraction. It is also an effort to secure ‘verifiable data’ and use it as a starting point for inference. Some information about individual companies, such as production facilities and products, could be verified by simple fieldwork called ‘verifiable data.’ More verifiable data rather than unverifiable claims were collected in order to infer rationally, and to un-derstand reasonably. It is tough to clearly understand the reality through literature research because of the limitations of North Korean materials, all of which could be published only with the permission of officials. However, if we try to distinguish between the detailed information and the opinions even in official publications, it could be possible to produce some meaningful research results. As long as distance from their logic could be kept, the analysis of North Korean literature could be reasonable.7 According to a study analyzing doctoral dissertations focusing on North Korea written in English, a research climate emerged which excluded North Korean publications.8 It elimi-nates even the opportunity to understand North Korea’s logic from their perspective. In contrast, North Korean studies in South Korea have been trying to understand their logic and concerns by intensively analyzing North Korean literature since the 1990s.9 This paper looks in detail at innovative activities introduced in the food industry of the 2010s, focusing on the ‘Kumkhop (Golden Cup) General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople 금컵체육인종합식료공장 (hereafter, Kumkhop).’ In the case of Kum-khop, an effort is made to discover some of the innovation policies which could be applied to the food industry sector and analyze how company activities and national development strategies were combined. Kumkhop, founded in 2010, became a kind of ‘model and standard factory’ in the food industry.
The relative abundance and variety of available materials is the other reason why the case of Kumkhop was focused on. Sometimes, some articles about the enterprise contain more verifiable data than others. Two articles have been published by out-siders after personal fieldwork of Kumkhop, visiting and interviewing. Also, many articles on Kumkhop were released by Chosun Shinbo, which dispatched special cor-respondents to North Korea to make these reports.10 In addition, the acquisition of some articles and videos including an interview with the chief executive officer which unusually contains his thoughts, made more intensive analysis possible.11
In conclusion, small but continuous changes in North Korean society were found by combining micro-field activities with macro-political orientation. In 2009, North Korea began to transfer the achievements of the defense science and technology sec-tor, including CNC (Computerized Numerical Control), to improve the civilian economy. A new production system consisting of computer-controlled machines was actively introduced into production sites. Onwards, it also accelerated the changes of individual companies in the food industry. Kumkhop was established rap-idly growing into North Korea’s representative food company. Two central policies supported the changes of Kumkhop; strengthening the autonomy of individual com-panies and encouraging technological innovation at the company level.
1990년대 후반, 북한은 식량이 부족하여 사람들이 굶어죽는 지경에 이르렀다. 극심한 자연재해, Socialist Countries Block의 붕괴, 그리고 최고 지도자의 죽음으로 인한 리더십의 흔들림 등으로 인해 북한 경제 시스템은 전반적으로 어려운 상황에 놓여 있었다. 일부 어려운 지점이 생긴 정도가 아니라 국가경제 전반이 생존(Survival)의 위험을 받고 있었다.
부문별 혁신이 아니라 국가 경제 시스템 전반에 대한 혁신이 필요한 시점이었다. 이에 북한은 Technological Innovation을 추구하였다. ‘과학기술 우선’이라는 새로운 경제발전 전략을 채택하였다. 특히 국방과학기술을 우선 발전시켜 국가 안전을 보장하고, 여기서 개발된 앞선 과학기술을 민간 영역으로 이전하여 민생을 향상시키는 방향으로 발전 전략을 다듬었다.
그 결과, 2010년대 후반에 이르면, 북한 경제는 생존을 걱정하는 수준을 훨씬 벗어났다. 아직 부족한 점이 많고, 고도 성장이나 번영을 이야기할 수준은 아니다. 하지만 생활 수준이 점진적으로 나아지고 있는 듯하다. 2019년에는 665만톤으로 최고생산 기록을 넘어섰다. 최근에 가장 적게 생산한 해가 2018년이었는데 495만톤이었다고 한다. 이것마저도 기본 배급량 420만톤을 대략 18%가량 넘어선 것이다. 최소한 식량 문제만큼은 자체적으로 해결할 수 있는 수준이 되었다.
식량 생산과 관련한 혁신 뿐만 아니라 식품 산업 부문의 혁신도 함께 진행되었다. 그 결과 2010년대 중반부터 식료품 판매에서 국내산이 외국산을 밀어냈다는 평가가 나왔다. 2009년 ‘첨단돌파전략’ 추진과 함께 민간 영역에서 식품 산업 부문이 가장 먼저 국가적 지원을 받으면서 혁신정책을 추구하였다. 김정은 시대에 접어들어 기업단위의 혁신활동을 강조한 것도 이런 변화에 영향을 많이 주었다.
이 논문에서 필자는 ‘금컵체육인종합식료공장(Kumkhop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople)’을 중심으로 2010년대 식품산업 부문에서 도입된 혁신 활동을 구체적으로 살펴보았다. 그리고 구체적인 기업 활동과 국가적 발전 전략이 어떻게 연결되어 있는지 분석하였다. 거시적인 국가정책만 추적하다가 추상화되어 현실감을 잃어버리는 오류를 범하지 않기 위함이다. 경제활동의 실제 주체인 기업을 단위로 검증 가능한 데이터를 추론의 출발점으로 삼았다. 게다가 북한 내부에서 만든 정보 뿐만 아니라 외부에서 북한을 방문하여 남긴 기록을 최대한 활용하였다.
결국 필자는 미시적인 현장의 활동과 거시적인 정책적 지향을 연결시켜, 작지만 꾸준히 이어지고 있는 북한 사회의 변화를 읽을 수 있었다. 북한은 CNC를 비롯한 국방 과학기술 부문에서 개발한 성과를 2009년부터 본격적으로 민간 경제 발전에 활용/이전하기 시작하였다. 이 즈음부터 식품산업 부문 개별기업들의 변화도 빨라졌다. 금컵이 이 때 설립되어 북한 대표 식료공장으로 급속히 성장했다. 한편으로는 개별 기업의 자율성을 강화하고 다른 한 편으로는 기업 차원의 기술혁신을 강제하는 정책들이 도입되어 이런한 금컵의 변화를 뒷받침했다.
