Kim permits private car ownership… but not Benz and Lexus
Smuggled passenger vehicles at a car lot [Image / NK Times]
After earlier allowing ordinary citizens to own their own cars, the government has taken high-end foreign luxury brands off the list of permitted vehicles.
According to several sources in the country, the rules changed to permit ordinary people to own cars at the beginning of this year. But expensive luxury imports like Mercedes-Benz and Lexus have now been explicitly excluded.
The government reportedly capped the purchase price of vehicles at 50,000 yuan (USD 6,960), banning both the sale and operation of cars that exceed this limit.
As a result, even cadres and the wealthy class known as donju, who are interested in cars and want to buy higher-end vehicles, are now limited to cars within the designated price range, sources said.
This move is interpreted as an effort to preserve high-end foreign cars as an exclusive symbolic privilege of the leadership.
There is speculation that it is especially tied to the personal preference of Kim Jong-un, who is known to favor both the German and Japanese luxury brands.
In fact, during his visit to flood-damaged areas in North Pyongan Province last July, Kim surveyed the scene from a Lexus LX, as reported by state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Han was born in 1989 in Taehongdan county, Ryanggang province, North Korea. She graduated from Hyesan Teacher's College in 2012, after which she worked as an elementary school teacher. She defected to South Korea in 2016 and works as a reporter at NK Times in Seoul.
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