The manager of North Korea's Sinuiju Cosmetics Factory clenches her fists when asked about a rival plant in Pyongyang, then bumps them together.
READ: Trump-Kim summit: Nuclear breakthrough or vague promises? The reality is both far more difficult and far more complicated than that - and the North is trying to get there on its own. At the ruling party's last congress Kim decried"the filthy wind of bourgeois liberty and 'reform' and 'openness' blowing in our neighbourhood".
For a time after the 1950-53 Korean War the North was wealthier than the South, helped by its Soviet backers and a decision by its former Japanese colonisers to concentrate industrialisation amid its mineral resources and hydroelectric potential. But that reversed as the North - long considered one of the most state-controlled economies in the world - suffered decades of economic mismanagement, worsened by the Soviet Union's demise.
Kim declared last year that the North's nuclear weapons development was complete and its new priority was"socialist economic construction". He devoted most of his key New Year speech to the economy, although analysts say there have been few new reforms in recent months as Pyongyang focuses on negotiations with Washington.
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