Saturday, April 4, 2015

If North and South Korea Unite

If North and South Korea unite, Japan will be faced with a huge new competitor, much more powerful a competitor than South Korea is right now. There will be a country of seventy-five to eighty million people right on the Chinese border, with lots of cheap, disciplined labor and natural resources in the north and lots of capital, expertise, and management capabilities in the south. Such a country would run circles around Japan. The cost of doing business in Japan is high and getting higher. Among other things, the Japanese do not have a lot of cheap labor anymore.

Japan is against unification for obvious reasons. I am not sure why America is against it, other than simple inertia. For American bureaucrats, who are intellectually lethargic, characteristically slow to change their thinking, a divided Korea is a way of life. Several thousand US soldiers are stationed in South Korea — it is something of an industry, and an entire bureaucracy subsists on the industry's continuity.

Where are the investment opportunities in North Korea? one might ask. I invest in markets, and there is no market there, so I would have to find companies, maybe Chinese or other Asian companies, that would benefit from the opening up of North Korea. I do not know of such companies right now. But North Korea is ripe for factories, hotels, restaurants, pretty much anything at this point. North Korea has nothing — no mobile phones, no Internet. Like Myanmar, the country lacks everything from the most basic goods and services to the highest technology. Yes, Myanmar has the Internet, but very little penetration. Yes, both countries have soap, but not nearly enough. Yes, both countries have electricity, but not nearly enough.

Tourism, I believe, presents investment opportunities in North Korea. There are only twenty-five million North Koreans, so there is not going to be a big boom in their traveling the world, but there is probably going to be a big boom in South Koreans visiting North Korea. There will be a staggering business in marriage, because there is a huge shortage of girls in South Korea. South Korean men can look for wives in Los Angeles or Queens, but the main source of Korean brides is going to be North Korea. The north does not suffer from the demographic problem that plagues the South.

I am dying to find a way to invest in both North Korea and Myanmar. The major changes in these two countries are among the most exciting things I see right now, looking to the future.

- Source, Business Insider