Via a reader tip comes news that a South Korean think tank is recommending one of the worst Inter-Korean ideas yet, a single currency between North and South Korea:
South and North Korea should use a single currency to form an economic union in the mid to long term, the Korea Institute of Finance (KIF)noted in a report Sunday.
“When investment increases in North Korea along with inter-Korean trade of goods and services, the flow of capital will naturally follow. It will lead to problems such as settlements and which currencies should be used,” said Lee Yoon-sok, a senior research fellow at the KIF.
To deal with such problems, the two governments may allow residents to exchange their money with other currency when traveling North or South.
They may also allow the currencies of the two countries to be freely used in both countries. The researcher added that some North Koreans are known to be holding South Korean currency, expecting economic integration. [Korea Herald]
You can read more at the link, but if we thought North Korean counterfeiting was bad now, just wait until there is a single currency the Kim regime can control and print at will and call it inflation. I wonder who’s face would go on the bills?
Also of interest is that the KIF believes that sanctions will be eased on North Korea before the mid-term elections by President Trump to give him a foreign policy win. As long as North Korea does not commit to real denuclearization I don’t see sanctions being dropped, but I guess we will see what happens.
