North Korea, a country rarely associated with leisure or consumer choice, is experiencing an unlikely boom in coffee shops, luxury malls, waterparks, resorts and other forms of entertainment as leader Kim Jong Un seeks to channel growing household wealth into an increasingly state-controlled commercial economy.
Chinese customs data reveal the scale of the shift. North Korea’s imports of massage equipment have increased 40-fold over the past decade, while treadmill shipments have risen by more than 600%. Pianos, amusement equipment and even bumper cars are also flowing into the country.
The expansion extends from luxury shopping centres and beach resorts to ski destinations and entertainment complexes, according to trade statistics, North Korean state media reports and interviews with five recent visitors and two defectors.
Analysts say the policy is about more than giving North Koreans access to new luxuries. By directing personal spending towards state-controlled retail and leisure networks, Kim’s government can bring more commercial activity under official supervision, weaken informal markets and create additional sources of revenue and domestic economic growth.
“The production, distribution and capital flows concentrated in the markets” are being drawn “into an official economic space managed by the state”, said Kang Seong-hyeon, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Hyundai Research Institute.
The expansion is taking place despite heavy United Nations sanctions targeting North Korea, including restrictions involving luxury goods, energy and mineral trade. Yet North Korea’s economy grew 3.5% in 2025, its third consecutive year of growth above 3%, according to South Korea’s central bank.
The changes have become increasingly visible to foreign visitors. After travelling to Pyongyang in May, Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan described the capital’s progress as “remarkable”, saying it resembled “any modern city” in East Asia.
Residents can now drink cappuccinos and shop for home appliances at the Rangnang Aeguk Kumgang Service Complex, a luxury shopping centre that opened last year. The Hwasong Taedonggang Beer Restaurant, a two-year-old establishment, has also received favourable coverage in state media. In April, Kim visited a new pet shop with his daughter, Kim Ju Ae.
The money supporting this new consumption culture is believed by South Korean researchers to come from several sources, including cryptocurrency theft, the deployment of North Korean troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine and exports of coal and other minerals. US officials and cybersecurity experts have repeatedly linked cryptocurrency theft to North Korean state-sponsored hackers.
The Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy estimates that North Korea earned as much as $14.4 billion from its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war between August 2023 and December 2025.
That influx of money is reaching parts of an economy in which informal trading has also allowed some people to accumulate wealth. Ruediger Frank, a professor of East Asian economy and society at the University of Vienna, described the result as a middle class of roughly eight million people with savings but limited opportunities to spend them.
Consumption, Frank argued, provides Kim with a way to address that problem. It can reduce frustration, divert money away from bidding up the prices of basic necessities such as rice and generate economic activity through domestic demand.
North Korea’s leisure infrastructure has expanded particularly rapidly since 2022. A review of more than 1,200 state-media articles found a sharp increase in references to tourism, leisure and cultural life as attractions were opened or renovated.
The Wonsan Kalma beach resort began operating in the summer of 2025, while five luxury hotels opened in December in Samjiyon near the Chinese border. A ski resort is under construction nearby, while a waterpark and an equestrian club are also being developed in the northeast.
State television showed the Wonsan resort crowded with domestic visitors during an August heatwave. Rowan Beard, co-founder of travel operator Young Pioneer Tours, said one local contact told him that members of a family had to share a twin room because other accommodation had already been booked.
The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang said the resort attracted more than 300,000 domestic visitors during the second half of 2025.
Other cities are also being drawn into the leisure drive. Saunas, swimming pools, gaming arcades and sports centres have appeared in the northeastern city of Rason, according to a Chinese businessman identified by his surname, Cui.
Across the country, Kim’s regional development programme includes leisure complexes containing libraries, restaurants and cinemas. State media says at least two dozen have been completed or are under construction.
The most conspicuous developments, however, are in Pyongyang. A new residential district promoted by state media includes a gaming arcade, a car dealership and a restaurant serving salmon belly and foie gras burgers.
The range of consumer goods has expanded as well. At Ryugyong Golden Plaza, which opened in 2023, shops have displayed logos associated with Rolex, Omega and Herbelin, while an electronics shop features Huawei branding. Rolex and Huawei did not comment, while Omega and Herbelin said they have no official retailers or distributors in North Korea.
Digital commerce is emerging alongside the physical retail boom. Images published by Beard and NKTechLab show North Korean mobile applications resembling China’s Alipay. Beard, who visited Pyongyang in May, said mobile payments were used “everywhere” and for “anything available for sale”.
Chinese customs data also show increased imports of pianos, watches and amusement equipment, including merry-go-rounds, rollercoasters and waterslides. Between January 2025 and July this year, North Korea imported more than three tonnes of bumper cars from China, worth more than $20,000.
The transformation reflects a longer economic struggle. Following the famine of the 1990s, semi-legal markets expanded because the state could no longer reliably supply its population. Attempts to shut them down in the early 2000s failed, according to Jung Chang-Hyun, director of the Peace Economy Research Institute in Seoul, because the government lacked the distribution infrastructure necessary to replace them.
Kim’s current strategy could be an attempt to solve precisely that problem by building state-controlled commercial infrastructure capable of competing with, and eventually weakening, private markets.
Electronic payments could also give the government greater visibility over private spending. In 2023, Pyongyang passed a law requiring every bank and shop to accept electronic payments.
Yet the new consumer economy remains sharply unequal. Yang Il-cheol, a former Pyongyang driver who defected to South Korea last year, said people like him had little access to the new restaurants and leisure facilities. Although mobile phones have become widespread in the capital, he said many North Koreans remain distrustful of the government and prefer to use cash.
The broader economic strategy may also have geopolitical consequences. Analysts say a more self-sustaining consumer economy could reduce Pyongyang’s dependence on sanctions relief and weaken incentives to resume nuclear negotiations with Washington, even as US President Donald Trump has expressed a desire to meet Kim again.
The North Korean Embassy in Beijing did not respond to questions about the domestic consumption drive. Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the White House also did not comment. China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing maintained trade and cooperation with North Korea while implementing UN Security Council resolutions, adding that sanctions should not affect the country’s livelihood.
For now, Kim’s consumer push appears to be giving North Korea’s economy a new outlet for accumulated wealth while bringing commerce further under state supervision. But the strategy carries a fundamental contradiction: greater access to consumption may ease economic frustration without resolving the political restrictions that govern who can participate and how.
“Consumption buys time,” Frank said. “It does not buy loyalty forever.”
