The second-day sitting of the 9 th Plenary Meeting of the 8 th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) took place on Wednesday amid the deep interest and expectation of all the Party members and other people of the country looking at the strategic stronghold of our revolution after hearing the news of the convocation of the December 2023 Plenum with great excitement.

The respected General Secretary Kim Jong Un made an important conclusion on the direction of struggle for 2024.

In the conclusion, he defined it as the general orientation for future struggle to successfully implement the programme set forth at the Eighth Congress of the WPK by further amplifying and making the most of the favorable condition created through the unyielding struggle in the past three years and to lay a springboard for a fresh advance in the future. And he set forth the militant tasks to be carried out by all the fields of the revolution and construction in 2024, a decisive year for securing a vivid practical guarantee for the fulfillment of the five-year plan.

He stressed the issues to be prioritized in steadily expanding the successes in socialist construction including the strengthening of the state administrative and economic work system and order and the further enhancement of the Cabinet’s responsibility and role and clarified the important tasks for the new year to be dynamically pushed forward in the key industrial sectors such as metal, chemistry, electric power, coal and machinery and in the overall economic fields including light industry and construction and the ways for carrying them out.

He stressed the Party and state measures for accelerating the rural development including the rural housing construction, an important construction project started by the historic resolution of the 8 th WPK Central Committee, the issue of stabilizing the agricultural production on a high level by continuously directing big efforts to farming and the essential and vital matters for steadily improving the land and environment protection and the urban management and providing the citizens of the capital city with more civilized and affluent living conditions.

The conclusion also set the priority goals for the development of the regional industry and the fishing industry and indicated the orientation for expanding and developing the external economic work.

The General Secretary indicated the tasks and ways for the cultural field, including science, education, public health, literature and art, media and sports, to make a steady leap forward on the basis of this year’s successes and referred to the practical issues for remarkably enhancing the role of the people’s power organs and law enforcement organs and more dynamically organizing and conducting the work of the working people’s organizations.

He set forth the militant tasks for the People’s Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defence sectors to further accelerate the war preparations, on the basis of in-depth analysis of the grave political and military situation in the Korean peninsula which reached extreme due to the anti-DPRK confrontation moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces unprecedented in history.

He clarified the independent principle of the WPK to expand and develop the relations of strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries and dynamically wage the anti-imperialist joint action and struggle on an international scale under the rapidly changing world geo-political situation and indicated the orientation of the external affairs and the work towards the south.

The conclusion underlined the key issues for further consolidating the organizational and ideological foundation of our Party and refreshing the Party’s ideological work as required by the developing situation.

The General Secretary’s important conclusion was fully supported and approved by all the participants as it clarified the new year’s orientation of advance and guidelines of practical action for steadily and prudently implementing the Korean-style development strategy through more courageous and resolute struggle despite the ever-increasing challenges and difficulties.

The plenary meeting continues to discuss the agenda items.