Kim said Pyongsong was the North's biggest wholesale market

Authorities closed the Pyongsong market on the outskirts of the capital of Pyongyang in mid-June and set up two smaller markets in nearby districts, the Seoul-based Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights said in a newsletter provided Monday.

Kim said Pyongsong was the North's biggest wholesale market with some 30,000-40,000 stalls.

The group regularly issues a newsletter on developments inside the North, citing information collected from sources it does not identify inside the country. North Korea is one of the world’s most closed nations, keeping tight control over its 24 million people without tolerating dissent or independent media.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles Seoul’s relations with the North, said it cannot confirm the report.

Street markets have been allowed to spring up in communist North Korea in recent years as a way for hungry people to seek food and other necessities at a time when the central government is unable to adequately feed them.

But the regime has grown wary of capitalist influence resulting from the spread of markets where imported goods, including even DVDs of South Korean films and television soap operas, are sold, according to analysts, defectors and news reports.

The group regularly issues a newsletter on developments inside the North, citing information collected from sources it does not identify inside the country. North Korea is one of the world's most closed nations, keeping tight control over its 24 million people without tolerating dissent or independent media.