Deputy Kim Tok Hun, premier of the Cabinet of the DPRK, made a report at the 4th Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK held on January 17 in which he called for thoroughly carrying out the five-year plan for national economic development set forth at the Eighth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea.

According to the report, all the people and service personnel of the People's Army who turned out in carrying out the five-year strategy for national economic development, true to the decision of the Seventh Congress of the WPK had waged devoted struggle to provide precious assets for sustaining economic development by their own efforts in the past five years, he said, and went on:

The building of power stations was positively propelled for creating new generating capacity, the Juche-based system of producing iron was established in reliance on domestic technology, materials and fuel and new construction and remodelling projects in different sectors were dynamically pushed forward. All this contributed to further augmentation of the independence and Juche character of the national economy.

Samjiyon City was radically transformed into a model mountainous city, monumental edifices were wonderfully built everywhere as an epitome of modern civilization including Ryomyong Street, the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort and the Central Zoo and a drive for recovering from consecutive natural disasters and providing the people in the afflicted areas with cradle of happiness was dynamically conducted. This made the people feel grateful for the socialist system of our country in reality.

We protected the security of the state and the life and safety of the people from the pandemic sweeping across the world, maintained stable epidemic prevention state, and the regular working system and foundation were established in the hygienic and epidemic prevention sector.

During the 80-day campaign of loyalty a surge in production was made in the leading sectors, and several major construction projects were successfully concluded. So, the work of strongly consolidating the foundation of the self-supporting economy was positively propelled.

These precious successes are a valuable fruition brought about by the guidance of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un who made patriotic devotion making ceaseless high-intensity forced march for the country and great people.

The report referred to the serious mistakes observed in the work of the Cabinet during the period of carrying out the five-year strategy for national economic development, and also causes of those mistakes.

The report said that we face heavy tasks to unconditionally carry out the five-year plan for national economic development set forth at the Eighth Party Congress.

He stressed that the Cabinet will definitely put our economy on a normal track that makes sustained development, unaffected by any outside influence while maintaining a firm hold on the adjustment strategy and reinforcement strategy together with self-reliance and self-sufficiency which were set forth by the Party during the new five-year plan as economic strategy and as main seed and theme.

He stressed that they would focus investment on metal industry and chemical industry with them as the key link in the whole chain of economic development, so as to normalize the production in all fields of the national economy. He continued:

We will drastically increase the production of electricity, the main force of independent economy, and reliably guarantee the stable development of the national economy and the material and cultural life of the people.

In the field of electric power industry, we will conduct the drive for increased production for meeting the immediate demand for power and adjust and reinforce its overall production foundation and expand it on a long-term basis.

We will increase investment in the coal industrial field, the outpost for developing the self-supporting economy, and thus satisfactorily meet the demand of coal in the key industrial fields of the national economy.

We will wage in a bold way and powerfully promote the work for nationwide provision of equipment, materials, labour and funds to the field of coal industry and thus further consolidate the material and technical foundations and drastically increase the proportion of the mechanization in the pit work.

We will turn the machine industry into the one with reliable foundation and into development-and-creation type industry and actively develop and produce modern and efficient machine products and thus make sure that the machine industry takes the lead and steer the overall economic fields.

In the field of mining industry, the force for geological prospecting will be strengthened and the work for the unified and effective development and exploitation of the underground natural resources of the country will be propelled in a realistic way and thus reinforce and expand the production foundation of mines, refineries and factories and basically meet the demand of the national economy for nonferrous metals and nonmetal minerals.

In the field of railway transport and land and marine transport, the modernization of railways will be actively pushed forward and the transport will be improved in a revolutionary way to satisfactorily meet the demand for railway transport. We will ensure that more large-tonnage cargo ships that follow the world trend of shipbuilding technical development and new-model underground trains, trolley-buses, tramcars and passenger buses are produced.

In the construction field, a professional construction force will be built up and the level of mechanization for construction will be raised. Yearly plans for massively carrying out capital construction will be worked out including the construction of dwelling houses for 50 000 families in Pyongyang and dwelling houses for 25 000 families in Komdok area and construction operation and guidance will be meticulously organized for their implementation and provide people with higher civilized living conditions and a face-lift be given to the appearance of the country.

The Cabinet will ensure the unified management of products and put the focus of the improvement of the economic management on lowering cost and improving quality on the principle of enhancing the functions of the state that organizes economic affairs and making sure that the results of the economic work are directed to the promotion of the people's welfare.

He continued that they would surely attain the goal of crop production set forth by the Party in the agricultural field, the major thrust area of the socialist economic construction, and further consolidate the material and technical foundations for the sustained development of agriculture.

He said: More efforts will be directed to the development of light industry to increase the production of consumer goods and their quality so that people would enjoy their own products.

We will systematically increase the production of seafood in the fisheries field.

We will make sure that the cities and counties would set up development strategies and long-term goals suited to the local characteristics in a realistic way and put them into practice and thus turn all cities and counties into strategic strongholds of highly civilized and prosperous socialist state and the developed region with its peculiar characteristics.

We will actively solve scientific and technical problems urgent in carrying out the new five-year plan for national economic development and propel the development of core and advanced cutting-edge technology.

The Cabinet will bring about a definite turn in the overall economic work in the direction of promoting fresh innovation, bold creation and steady progress and take measures for removing old work system and irrational and ineffective work methods that prevent our advance and thus make a stride forward in the economic construction and in the improvement of people's standard of living.

The report stressed that all the officials in charge of economic guidance would cherish deep in their minds the heavy responsibilities they have assumed before the Party, the revolution, the country and the people, and creditably discharge their revolutionary duties in the struggle for implementing the decision made at the Eighth Congress of the WPK.

KCNA