“Much concerned about the depletion of resources, many countries are paying much attention to the economical use of them, and such a trend is also growing in the DPRK amid the nationwide interest,” said an official of the State Planning Commission.

The Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held last December pointed out that all sectors, units and citizens should make efforts to increase production and practise economy to the maximum so as to create more of their own things and save them as many as possible, noting that the models to be followed in the present era are the patriotic working people who regard the spirit of economy as part of their mental qualities, as well as the labour-, energy-, cost-, and land-saving enterprises.

Now there is an increasing tendency towards founding saving-oriented businesses in the whole of the economy including industries, agriculture, architecture and public service, while ordinary households are adopting a good habit of saving water, electricity and coal.

The Kim Chaek and Hwanghae iron and steel complexes and other metal industrial bases are making progress with the installation of new floating-preheating oxygen blast furnaces.

“When completed, the furnace will help slash the oxygen consumption, save much material and fuel and boost productivity,” said an official of the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry. On the basis of the completion of the design for the furnace last year, the construction is proceeding apace this year.”

The Chongchongang Thermal Power Station established an automatic combustion stabilization control system in a boiler for generator, saving several tons of heavy oil and hundreds of tons of coal every month.

The Hungnam Electrode Factory remodelled a graphite heat-treatment furnace into a more economical one, thereby doubling the productivity and reducing the power consumption to a third and the operation time by half.

The Hamhung Flour Mill in South Hamgyong Province refashioned the wheat flour production process into a saving-oriented one to increase the productivity 1.5 times while decreasing the power consumption by over 50 percent and reducing the labour to one fifth, the production area to a fourteenth and the number of machines to one tenth. It also upgrades equipment constantly so as to systematically lower the norm of materials consumption per unit of output. By remodelling the grading process, it reduced the power consumption to one fourth and the hourly water consumption to one sixth, while raising the amount of flour yielded from wheat by five percent.

With the equipment upgrading period constantly shortened, the mill’s production plan accomplishment rate increased by 40 percent as compared to the periods before the upgrading and the technical specifications of flour such as actual yield and moisture content are firmly ensured, according to the chief engineer of the factory.

The recent achievements in science and technology are, nearly without exception, oriented towards saving costs and energy.

“In the past, our mine’s production records were not satisfactory. But now we are taking a leading position in the complex,” said the chief engineer of the Joyang Mine of the Kaechon Area Coal-mining Complex, attributing its success to the economical use of supplies.

The mine reduced the consumption of wooden props to one fourth by installing metal props for drifts and raises and cut the amount of drills to be purchased from 500 to 150 by introducing drill adapters.

The Sinuiju Reed Processing Factory in North Phyongan Province developed a reed fibreboard production technology, which has enabled it to lessen the reliance on timber in the production of various goods such as plywood and shuttering.

The factory’s reed fibreboard has a great bending strength, a moisture absorptivity of 10 percent and a production cost much less than plywood. The introduction of waterproof shutterings made with the fibreboards into construction sites in the province proved that they can be reused for over 15 times.

The material science faculty of Kim Il Sung University developed a nano-compound fuel additive.

One gram of the additive in 1kg of fuel oil can help save fuel by 10-15 percent in a gasoline engine and 15-20 percent in a diesel engine, while substantially reducing the emission of harmful gas.