No, the story that I read indicated that the North Koreans brought Western visitors to a department store, to demonstrate how great North Korea's economy was.

This Western visitor noticed that after people exited the store, they immediately entered again, to give an illusion of a busy store -- when in fact, nothing was actually being purchased.

(I can't remember if the shoppers were using money or taking things out of the store, but I have to assume that they were. I wish that I could find this story, which was quite fascinating.)

My point is that the North Korean government was so inept at propaganda that their attempts to demonstrate economic stability and power were laughably transparent.