South Korean media is reporting that Coca-Cola and KFC will open outlets in the communist North later this year.

Pyongyang recently agreed to let the American news agency Associated Press open a bureau in the secretive state.

South Korea's YTN network says Coca-Cola and KFC branches will open in Pyongyang in the next few months.

Executives from both American firms visited North Korea earlier this month after being invited by Pyongyang's foreign investment office.

If true, the decision to allow symbols of American capitalism into the closed communist state would mark an opening up by North Korea.

But it is doubtful that many of the impoverished country's 24 million people could afford to buy products sold by either the US fast food giant or the soft drink conglomerate.