I'm not quite prepared to compare it to North Korea, but it's certainly not Liechtenstein either. Maybe more to the tune of... Moldova? Small enough and tucked in a corner of the map where nobody looks unless prompted, elections are rigged, people are allowed to do business both honestly and less so, but folks aren't kept from leaving. Watch that you're not running out of superlatives too quickly, for when things might turn further south.
Well the info is just to keep the backers happy and/or encourage new ones. Ultimately it will only serve to make the intro/tutorial for the game and that is fine... assuming of course the game ever gets released. I have confidence that will happen shortly after the space courier missions.