On the same site, there is a category
labor conditions/wages. There is very little information on the absolute wage level, but I found this:
"... even though the North Korean government keeps most of the cash wages, the commodity coupons still give the worker approximately $60 in purchasing power – a decent income in North Korea."
At the link in my previous contribution is a longer list of price. This list makes clear that there is no need for a 10 won coin and the 50 and 100 could be used at best to make change only. As I suspect there will be 100 won notes in circulation, there is a good chance that the coins have no practical use at all.
I also suspect that as long as the highest and lowest coin denominations in circulation in South Korea are 100 won and 10 won, this will also be the case in North Korea. The North has constructed a series of empty villages along the border to "show" normal life to Southerners with binoculars, visiting the border observatories (been there, done that). Of course, the Southerners know that the villages are empty and so they show only the pathetic inability of the North to create normal life. I think these coins are not different. They are meant to show an economy on par with the South. They have a political purpose, not an economic purpose. To those who know this, they are tokens of the pathetic inability of the North to develop their economy or even stop it from sliding backwards.
Peter
