DANDONG, China -- When managers at a North Korean metal works began dreaming that foreigners' suits and blouses might one day be draped on the company's aluminum coat-hangers, there was no way to pursue international markets directly.
Few citizens of the Stalinist state are allowed to travel abroad, and it is difficult to make contacts with prospective buyers. So company officials asked Hai Feng Foreign Trade Co. Ltd., a firm in the Yalu River border town of Dandong, to explore the possibility of exporting for them.
"This morning we just received a rail car full of aluminum hangers," said a company official, who asked not to be identified. "We're selling them to Switzerland."