In Vietnam's south, its economic heartland, collectivisation of farms and factories lasted just ten years before private ownership was restored. 越南南部是它的经济腹地，在恢复私人所有制之前，这里的农业和工业集体化已经持续了十年。

　　People who had previously run businesses were able to get quickly back in the game. 以前经营商业的人可以迅速在这场游戏中恢复。

　　After 65 years of juche, the national ideology of self-reliance, North Koreans are starting from scratch. 经过65年的自主（自力更生的国家意识形态）后，朝鲜正在从头开始。

　　The growth of informal food and goods markets in recent years shows some entrepreneurship, but the learning curve for big firms will be much steeper. 近些年非正规食品和商品市场的增长展现出了一些企业家精神，但是对大型公司的经验学习曲线将更加崎岖。

　　The structure of North Korea's economy also complicates matters. 朝鲜经济的结构也使得这些问题复杂化。

　　More than 70% of the workforce in both Vietnam in the mid-1980s and China in the late 1970s (when its economic reforms started) was in agriculture. 20世纪80年代中期的越南以及20世纪70年代后期的中国（当时刚开始经济改革），两国超过70%的劳动力都在农业领域。

　　Simple changes to incentives letting farmers profit from the sale of their own crops, for example-led to a surge of agricultural productivity. 对激励因素做出简单的变化—例如，让农民从自产的农作物中获利—就能引起农业生产力的剧增。

　　And the exodus of workers from farms generated a pool of cheap labour for factories, fuelling the rise of export industries. 并且农业工人的大批离去为工业提供了大批廉价劳动力，刺激了出口产业的增长。

　　By contrast, more than 60% of North Korea's population already lives in cities. 相比之下，朝鲜超过60%的人口已经生活在了城市。

　　For big productivity gains, the government will need to overhaul moribund industries. 对于生产率的大幅提高而言，政府将需要对其停滞不前的工业进行改革。

　　In that respect North Korea resembles eastern Europe after the Soviet Union's demise, 在这一方面，朝鲜就像是苏联瓦解后的东欧一样，

　　says Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank in Washington. 白宫智囊团成员、彼得森国际经济研究所的马库斯·诺兰说道。

　　"There will be losers," he says. Unemployment might soar. Privatisation could increase already rampant corruption even further. “将会出现输家，”他说。失业率或许会激增。私有化可能会进一步刺激已存在的猖獗的腐败。

　　Sitting between China, South Korea and Japan, North Korea should find it easy to attract capital to create jobs. 坐落于中国、韩国与日本之间，朝鲜应该能够轻易吸引资本创造就业。

　　But its record for foreign investors is poor: it seized South Korean assets at their showpiece joint industrial park in 2016 when relations deteriorated. 但是朝鲜的外资记录很糟糕：2016年，朝韩两国关系恶化时，朝鲜在联合工业园区内查封了韩国的展柜。

　　Another weakness for North Korea is demography. 朝鲜的另一个弱势是其人口。

　　When Vietnam and China embarked on reforms they were both young countries, with median ages of about 20. 越南和中国开始改革时，两国均为年轻的国家，人口平均年龄约为20岁。

　　They had many workers and few elderly dependent on them. In North Korea, the median age is already 34, making it even older than Vietnam today. 两国内有很多劳动力，需要赡养的老年人很少。在朝鲜，他们的平均年龄已是34岁了，比如今的越南平均年龄还大。

　　As China ages, officials worry that it will get old before it gets rich. In North Korea the risk is that it will get old while it is still impoverished. 随着中国人口年纪的增长，官方担心国家在富裕前，人口就已经衰老。在朝鲜，其风险在于，人口衰老时，国家仍未脱贫。

　　All the more reason for Mr. Kim to get cracking on economic reform. He may have little hope of building the next Vietnam. 金正恩更有理由开始经济改革。或许他建立下一个越南的希望渺茫。

　　But better that he look to the outside world than keep North Korea entombed. 但是好在他将目光投向了外边的世界而不是让朝鲜与世隔绝。