A Pyongyang newspaper recently began to run commercial advertisements, a newspaper in Japan reported last weekend. The unexpected development in the North is considered as an attempt to trigger change in its media sector, a expert in Seoul said Sunday.

The Chosun Shinbo, published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongnyon, reported on its Web site Saturday that the Pyongyang Shinmun, a four-page newspaper for the North's capital, has begun running commercial advertisements.

"Pyongyang Shinmun is gaining popularity thanks to its unique layout of pages that have advertisements on manufacturers, shops and commodities,'' the Chosun Shinbo reported.

The Internet news story did not say exactly when the Pyongyang Shinmun began to place commercial advertisements, which have been criticized in the communist country as a symbol of capitalism.

But it said the advertisements' effectiveness became evident since Pyongyang announced measures for economic reform in July 2002.

"I think North Korea is conducting a small-scale experiment for its media sector by using the small newspaper in Pyongyang,'' Prof. Chin Hee-gwan of Sogang University's Institute of Social Science told The Korea Times.

He said the North tends to check the effectiveness of a pilot program before expanding it into a full scale. "If the experiment turns out to be successful, I guess people in the North will see advertisements appearing even on the Rodong Shinmun,'' Chin said.

The Rodong Shinmun, the largest newspaper in the North, is published by the ruling Workers' Party.

The Pyongyang Shinmun also plans to increase the number of advertisements by using its own Web site, which it launched on Jan. 1, the Chosun Shinbo reported. The cost for advertisements is reportedly free for now.

"One of the reasons we decided to run the Web site is to improve people's access to the media for advertisements,'' the Chosun Shinbo quoted an editor of the Pyongyang Shinmun as saying.

Source: Agencies