(FORTUNE Magazine) – Daewoo Chairman Kim Woo-Choong, 55, is Korea's most frequent flier, spending about half his time chasing deals around the world. ''I can smell money everywhere,'' he says. But his most intriguing trip this year was close to home, and he went by train. As he crossed into North Korea from China, Kim remembers thinking that he was ''entering the world's last closed market.'' Closed, certainly, and also broke. For years the North ran a brisk barter trade with the old communist bloc. Now Russia and all the other former Soviet republics want hard currency. China, the North's other main supplier, wants cash too, as do international creditors owed more than $6 billion. North Korea makes almost nothing of export quality except weaponry. Kim tends to see opportunity in even the bleakest situations, and North Korea is no exception. Meeting its supreme leader, Kim Il-Sung, among the last of the doctrinaire communists, Kim stressed economic realities. The essence of his pitch: ''I think North Korea should change its focus from heavy to light industry, which readily produces exports.'' Evidently the message got through. Kim signed preliminary agreements for nine small joint venture factories at Nampo, a container port on the northeast coast, to make garments, stuffed toys, and luggage. Daewoo expects to invest only $7 million initially. Kim eventually wants to set up a large textile spinning, weaving, and dyeing factory that would cost over $100 million. ''The only problem,'' he says, ''is how much the North Korean government is willing to develop its economy.'' Another larger problem, in fact, is beyond Kim's control: widespread suspicion that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. Seoul insists that the North must open its nuclear facilities to international inspection before any deals can go forward. An admitted optimist, Kim is also more patient than most businessmen. Hyundai founder Chung Ju-Yung visited North Korea several years ago, but nothing came of his plans to develop resorts there. Kim maintains that setting up export factories in the North is the best way to promote gradual reunification of the two Koreas. ''Whatever we do,'' he says, ''at least we won't lose money.'' Now that's optimism.