In November last year, the first-stage renovation project of the Kumsong Tractor Factory was inaugurated.

Looking at the face-lifted factory, its officials and workers recall the day in November, Juche 106 (2017) when the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un visited it.

Feasting his eyes on 80-hp tractors newly made by the factory with a bright smile on his face, he said they were quite spectacular, and praised its workers as they have made great achievements by creditably carrying out the task given by the Party and thus maintaining the original features of the working class.

After driving a tractor to know its performance and technical specifications, he said that the prototype tractor was not a simple vehicle but an iron horse of self-reliance and self-development that the Korean workers produced by giving full play to the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance. He stressed that they could manufacture it as they displayed their indomitable spiritual strength true to the Party’s call, not because they had favourable production conditions or technological foundations.

That day, he made the rounds of processing and assembly, sheet metal processing, moulding and other workshops for hours to learn in detail about the situation of the factory. He proposed bringing about another revolutionary change for actively promoting the development of vehicle industry of the country through the renovation of the factory. And he gave guidelines for the project, including the issues for forming a designing group, turning the factory into a labour-saving one by putting all its production lines on an automated, streamlined and robot-controlled basis and facelifting its interior and exterior. He also sent large funds and construction forces.

It was not all.

At the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in January 2021, he gave the factory precious instructions for tractor production. At the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth WPK Central Committee, he said that the plan of the Party Central Committee was to develop the factory into a general factory capable of producing various efficient farm machines as well as high horsepower tractors and took measures to this end.

A production building with modern equipment and advanced production lines was built on an area of tens of thousands of square metres, and over ten projects, including moulding, sheet-metal processing and forge workshops, were newly built or renovated, with the result that it has been provided with a foundation for mass-producing high-performance tractors and farm machines.

Today, it changes its appearance with each passing day as a core factory for realizing the comprehensive mechanization of the rural economy, according to the Party’s plan to dynamically promote the rural revolution in the new era.