Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
In an effort to assess the implementation of the five-year strategy for the national economic development in 2017, North Korea had a meeting of the party, state, economic and military executives on December 28, Rodong Sinmun reported on the next day.
At the meeting, Cabinet Premier Pak Pong-ju said, “In his [2017] New Year’s address this year, Kim Jong-un introduced a combative task to give an impetus to the victorious progress of socialism with the great power of self-reliance, and brought about a series of national occasions to celebrate or extra-magnificent events that will remain immortal in the country’s history.” Pak then added that Kim has “passionately led the projects in the economic sector that carried a key importance in the implementation of the five-year strategy for national economic development this year, even when he was so busy personally spearheading the all-out war to complete the development of the country’s nuclear forces.”
At the second plenary session of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held earlier this year, Pak said, the North Korean leader “presented a revolutionary countermeasure strategy to crumble the enemy’s despicable sanction plots into dust, and provided instrumental guidelines that have enabled us to make victorious progress in building a great socialist power.” He then listed Kim’s achievements in various areas, including the completion of the new residential complex on Ryomyong Street, progress in the development of Samjiyon County, the accomplishments in the machine industry such as the expanded production of cars and tractors, the construction of a livestock farming base in the Sepho area in Kangwon Province, and the increased production in the light industry, textile industry and fruit sector.
In addition, he said, thanks to Kim’s guidance, the North Korean Ministry of Chemical Industry and Ministry of Construction and Building-Materials Industries were able to “develop a firm prospect of the establishment of the C1 chemical industry in the science and technology sector, the Ministry of Land and Marine Transportation was able to develop a pilot system that enabled the comprehensive management and operation of ships, and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications was able to actively modernize the country’s postal system using its own technology.”
In particular, the premier asserted, the overall material and technical basis of the economic sectors, including the power, metal and chemical industries, has been strengthened this year.
“We should continue to place our top priority in putting our resources into the country’s defense industry and strengthening our self-defense capability,” he added.
Furthermore, “with the great power of our own strenuous efforts and the mighty power of science and technology,” he urged, North Koreans should “boldly make a struggle for increased production, creative struggle and charge for production in all fronts of the people’s economy, to meet the goal in every battle without question and build the material and technological foundations for the implementation of the five-year strategy.”
In fact, due to the intensified sanctions, North Korea has not been able to produce economic results as it had planned in the recent years. Neither was it able to hold the Mallima pioneers conference it had announced early last year.
As international sanctions continue, in 2018 Pyongyang is expected to focus on economic development more than anything else.
