An excellent article about car use in North Korea, Erik from Chinese Cars also contributed to the article which makes for a very interesting read.
July 10 (Bloomberg) — A black Volkswagen Passat with smoked windows glides down a suburban Pyongyang road. Its license plate begins with 216 — a number signifying Kim Jong Il’s Feb. 16 birthday, and a sign the car is a gift from the Dear Leader.
Even without a 216 license plate, a passenger sedan bestows VIP status in a country where traffic is sparse and imports are limited by external sanctions and domestic restrictions alike.
Just across the border, South Korea is the world’s fifth- largest automotive manufacturer. To an ordinary North Korean, though, a private car is “pretty much what a private jet is to the ordinary American,” says Andrei Lankov, author of a new book “North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea.”
He estimates there are only 20,000 to 25,000 passenger cars in the entire country, less than one per thousand people.
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