NGA Tearline: North Korea’s Cement Industry, More Than Meets the Eye

Written in collaboration with the Stimson Center's 38 North Project

North Korea’s cement industry is central to achieving several of the goals set forth in the new five-year economic plan. However, press declarations of cement-related modernization efforts and successes often do not match observable markers of modernization or success on imagery.

While North Korea is has the necessary natural resources, its cement industry has lagged due to poor quality control practices and dated production processes, often resulting in setbacks for the country’s larger and more aggressive construction efforts. These problems will persist without actual modernization of the industry.

For this report NGA Tearline collaborated with authors from the Stimson Center's 38 North project, including Peter Makowsky, Jenny Town, Michelle Kae and Samantha Pitz

Read more of this intelligence report at Tearline.mil.


What is NGA Tearline?

NGA is partnering with expert private groups to grow public-facing, authoritative open source intelligence on various strategic and humanitarian intelligence topics that tend to be under-reported within long-form format.

This authoritative open source content will be cited for internal purposes and it will grow public trust by increasing transparency around shared public-private interest in various strategic and humanitarian intelligence topics that are fit for public consumption.

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