Le 15 novembre, le XXII^e Seoul Colloquium in Korean Studies,
organisé par le Centre de l’EFEO à Séoul, en collaboration avec la Royal Asiatic
Society et l’Asiatic research Institute de la Korea University, est animé par le
Dr Tony Michell, professeur invité au Korea Development
Institute, School of Policy and Management, sur le thème « Pioneering Business in North Korea in 1993-4 ».Tony Michell arrived in Pyongyang to open a consulting office in May 1993. This is an account of what it took to get the licence and the first year and a half of business, taking into account negotiations with the government and clients and the state of shock induced in North Korean railways when they were asked to carry three containers from Nampo to Rajin and the calculations of how to make a capitalist profit in a controlled and planned (?) economy in which the brown won was worthless and foreigners dealt with the blue won and hard currency (and for a few the red won. This a "from the trenches" view of life and business in Pyongyang 25 years ago, ). The account is of interest because of the contrast with doing business after the economic reforms of 2002, from which the current rise of the Donju and modern North Korea became possible.  As Tony worked directly with the CPEEC, the government body involved in creating North Korea's first free trade zone, and the UNDP TRADP programme it offers an early attempt on the "don't call it" reform efforts after the collapse of COMECON. Tony Michell has been "doing things in Korea"(a phrase used by the British Embassy in the early 1990s). He worked as an economic planner for the Korean government (EPB) 1978-80, for the World Bank, ILO and UNDP and TetraPak in the 1980s, while assisting the first ever M&A of a Korean company by a foreign company.   In the early 1990s encouraged by the December `1991 talks he took his clients to the North and formed his own adventure capital company. In 2009 the growing scope of UN sanctions caused him to suspend his company, and visit on behalf of others down to the present.  He is also a visiting Professor at Korea Development Institute, School of Policy and Management. His most recent book is Samsung Electronics and the Struggle for Leadership of the Electronics Industry (2010). He has written articles on Korean economic and social history including the demography of preindustrial Korea,

 corée du nord   séoul colloquium in korean studies