Premier Kim Tok Hun, who is also member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and vice-president of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, inspected various sectors of the national economy.

Going round farms in South Phyongan, North Hwanghae and Jagang provinces, including those in Sukchon, Mundok, Koksan, Sohung and Songwon counties and Huichon City, he encouraged agricultural workers striving to uphold the Party's agricultural policy with high yield and learned about the present farming situation.

He urged the agricultural officials to take thorough measures to find out all the factors that have a negative effect on the growth of crops and give effective guidance to farming so that the earlier wheat and barley can be cultivated in a scientific and technological way in the latter half of their growth, so as to decisively increase the yield.

He called for paying attention to the nutrition care of rice seedlings, widely introducing excellent methods of cultivating seedlings and speeding up the irrigation project qualitatively so as to timely cope with abnormal climate including drought and high temperature.

At the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex, he called on officials to boldly conduct the technical updating for increasing the iron and steel production with a transparent viewpoint on the implementation of the Party's decisions and with high organizing ability, leadership and scientific and technological insight and thus finish the modernization project, including the construction of an energy-saving oxygen heat blast furnace, in a responsible manner in the planned period.

He called for thoroughly ensuring the quality of construction in updating the Jonchon Rock Drill Factory, pushing ahead with the project as scheduled and enhancing the role of scientists and technicians to perfect the production processes at a high level and thus prove their practical effectiveness.

Meanwhile, the premier went round the construction sites for regional-industry factories in Sukchon and Tongsin counties and the Pyongyang Construction Machine Factory and underscored the need to push ahead with the establishment of raw material bases and the training of technicians and skilled workers in a far-sighted way and spur the production of custom-built equipment needed for the operation of regional-industry factories.

The field consultative meetings discussed the issue for the agricultural guidance organs to map out detailed plans for increasing production by introducing advanced agricultural technical achievements to suit the overall growth of the earlier crops, the issue of rationally building the rock drill production process from the viewpoint of ensuring profitability, the issue of further strengthening the technical forces for updating the Juche-based iron production process and the issue of giving precedence to the supply of raw and other materials at relevant units.