North Korean House of Cards

projects ends up in the Royal Economy as either Supreme Leader
governing funds or in secret bank accounts. 454
The Mansudae Art Institute was founded in 1959 to support the idolization
campaign surrounding the Kim family through a wide variety
of projects from designing lapel pins to the 164-foot tall Monument
to the Founding of the KWP. Its place within the regime was made
clear in 2013 by the SPA: “44.8 percent of the total state budgetary
expenditure for the economic development and improvement of
people’s living standard was used for funding the building of
edifices to be presented to the 100th birth anniversary of President
Kim Il-sung.” 455
In the 1970s, the institute began to expand its operations outside
of North Korea, launching an international branch called Mansudae
Overseas Project Group. Since then, it has earned millions of dollars
on projects built for countries including Algeria, Angola, Botswana,
Benin, Cambodia, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Mozambique,
Madagascar, Namibia, Senegal, Syria, Togo, and Zimbabwe. In recent
years, it has been commissioned by European governments to restore
statues using technical skills that have long since been lost in the West. 456
According to a source quoted by Daily NK, the Mansudae operations
in Africa are substantial. 457
454 “Foreign Currency Earning Constructions in Africa,” Daily NK, June 21, 2010, http://www.
dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk03100&num=6519.
455 Caroline Winter, “Mansudae Art Studio, North Korea’s Colossal Monument Factory,”
Bloomberg, June 6, 2013.
456 Ibid.
457 “Foreign Currency Earning Constructions in Africa,” Daily NK, op. cit.
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