North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to “transform” the nation with a drive to build public health facilities, leisure complexes and industrial plants over a third of the country, state media said yesterday.
Attending a ceremony for a construction project in Unnyul County in South Hwanghae Province, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim announced projects to be built in 20 regions.
“We are now standing on the starting line of our gigantic struggle for another year, aimed at transforming the regions,” Kim said. “Nearly one-third of the cities and counties across the country will have been transformed.”
Photo: KCNA via REUTERS.
Kim also hailed soldiers mobilized at construction sites as “creators of the people’s wellbeing.”
Those remarks could suggest “an effort to shift significant portions of conventional military manpower into construction while focusing on [the country’s] nuclear capabilities,” said Ahn Chan-il, a researcher originally from North Korea.
Images released by state media showed Kim shoveling soil alongside other officials at a ceremony attended by an excited crowd clapping and waving North Korean flags.
Photos showed a large, dramatic celebratory explosion that state media described as “thrilling.”
A landmark congress of North Korea’s ruling Workers Party — its first in five years — is expected to take place in the coming weeks, although no date has been confirmed.
The nuclear-armed country is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, and has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
North Korea has long been criticized for prioritizing the military and its banned weapons programs over adequately providing for its people.
Pyongyang has also moved to revive inbound tourism to earn much-needed hard cash, developing lavish coastal and mountain resorts.
Analysts have said a regional development policy pushed by Kim two years ago is tacit acknowledgement of the major disparity in conditions between the showcase capital, Pyongyang, and the rest of the country.
The leader has also openly expressed anger at the slow pace of some projects, chastising lazy officials and even firing his vice premier in public for alleged incompetence last week.
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