It just might be according to this AP report.

“They are very skillful and hardworking,” said Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman who oversees two ventures in Pyongyang, one that makes business and game software for sale in Europe and another that makes antibiotics and painkillers for the domestic market. “It’s sometimes faster to get licenses and necessary approvals here than it is in China or Vietnam.”

Barrett said that even as the U.N. Security Council debated the latest sanctions on the North, he got inquiries from investors interested in its rich mineral resources and low-cost manufacturing work force.

Barrett claims that rising labor costs are causing investors to cool on China, and that the NORKs have everything it takes to take off economically and performed the same economic miracles as their estranged cousins to the South.

But obstacles still remain. Most international trade currently is through state companies, and national leaders are still wary about relaxing their grip on the economy. Despite all of this this, economic and political realities may very well end up dragging North Korea kicking and screaming into relative economic prosperity.

The only question left is whether it is in the best interests of the world to have an economically powerful North Korea.