North Korean clothing factories 'fully booked' with global orders
16/08/2017
It said there are about 15 large state-owned textile factories that Chinese companies use to take advantage of the cheaper labour – wages are around 75% lower in North Korea and productivity is higher as they work under stricter conditions. Textiles are North Korea’s second biggest export after coal.
Rip Curl in 2016 apologised when it found out some of its products had been made in North Korea. "This was a case of a supplier diverting part of their production order to an unauthorised subcontractor, with the production done from an unauthorised factory, in an unauthorised country, without our knowledge or consent, in clear breach of our supplier terms and policies,” it said at the time.
The Reuters reporter also found factories on the Chinese side of the border were hiring North Korean workers, and paying them half as much as the Chinese. These workers earn about $300 a month, with two-thirds going to the government. A typical shift is 7.30am until 10pm.
"We've been trying to get some of our clothes made in North Korea but the factories are fully booked at the moment," a Korean-Chinese businesswoman at a factory in Dalian, China, told the news agency.
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