Yanji, China -- Quite a few well-dressed itinerant ethnic Korean merchants were often seen in North Korean border cities such as Hyesan, Musan and Hoeryong in the 1980s. But few of them are observed in recent years.

Back then it was hardly an exaggeration to say that every one of two households in the Yanji Korean community was engaged in trading activities with the North. The traveling ethnic Korean merchants brought back to China such products as sea cucumber, Alaskan pollack, cuttlefish, herbs, quality edible mountain plants, copper and antiques, while selling cheap Chinese goods in the North. By selling Chinese products in the North, they could make handsome profits - two or even three times the costs, says Kim Hui Mun, 35, a Korean resident in China who used to trade with Pyongyang. Most popular in the North lately are very cheap nylon clothes, which are rarely worn in China, he adds. Chinese cigarettes, liquor, socks, candies and cookies are briskly sold in the North.

In recent years, however, the once-prosperous itinerant ethnic Korean merchants in North Korea are giving up the business in favor of such destinations as Russia and Southeast Asia. North Korea-bound merchants are now rarely seen at Dandong, Tuman and Changbai customs houses. They are halting business trips to the North because they are no longer profitable, according to reliable sources here. Commodities to be brought from the North have all but run out, and North Koreans' purchasing power to buy Chinese products has remarkably fell, they say. To make the matters worse, North Korean authorities are said to have recently reinforced crackdowns on them in a bid to uproot individual itinerant merchants.

Also hindering the business is corruption on the part of North Korean officials. The itinerant merchants are fed up with customs officials demanding excessive bribes and picking fights with them, they complain. Ethnic Korean businessman Kim Min Chol, 37 (assumed name), delivered relief goods to the North last year aboard a truck. He was quite upset when customs officials asked him to pay bribes even over the relief items. In addition, says he, on his way to his destination, a few soldiers boarded his truck by force and took one third of the goods away, adding that nothing whatsoever could be done about it.

A Korean resident in Dandong doing business with North Korea said that he was trying to establish a link with one of financially well-off military-affiliated North Korean trading firms. Ordinary North Korean trading companies are poorly funded and hardly trustable, he added.

North Korean authorities are said to be rooting out individual merchants in a bid to restore crippled social discipline, and encouraging trading firms, not individuals, to do trade with China. The fewer ethnic Koreans visit the North on business, the more difficult the lives of North Koreans will become.

(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com )