Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, gave field guidance at a major tank factory.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un was accompanied by Jo Chun Ryong, secretary of the WPK Central Committee, Kim Jong Sik, first deputy department director of the WPK Central Committee, and other senior officials of the Party Central Committee, and Kim Yong Hwan, president of the Academy of Defence Sciences.

He was greeted by the officials of the factory on the spot.

Going round various places of the factory, he learned in detail about the state of production and modernization at the factory and the implementation of the research tasks for core technology of tank.

The Academy of Defence Sciences and the workers and technicians of the factory, that have made single-minded efforts to carry out the tasks put forth at the Eighth Congress of the WPK on setting it as the pivotal goal of the munitions industry to put the military hardware on an intelligent, precision and highly-efficient basis and on orienting all the processes of research, development and production to its implementation, are making remarkable progress and successes in developing our-style tanks and armoured weapons and improving their combat performance.

Kim Jong Un highly appreciated that thanks to the role of the guidance team of the Party Central Committee and the correct and expert guidance of the Academy of Defence Sciences, more development-oriented prospect has been opened up in the field of the tank industry and, in particular, the idea and policy of the WPK Central Military Commission on further perfecting the core technology of the main battle tank are being carried on through steady development and production success.

He stressed that to replace the armoured weapons of the last century in our ground forces with latest tanks and armoured vehicles is the most important task in building up the armed forces and modernizing the ground forces.

He expressed satisfaction over the fact that the field of the tank industry upgraded the structural design of our-style tanks and composition of their firepower system to improve the service convenience of the tank crew, proved the scientific accuracy and reliability of the design of high-thrust engine and provided a firm guarantee for serial production.

Saying that the travelling and different other manoeuvring characteristics of tanks were improved through the development of integrated power transmission device and the new-type active protection system, passive protection means and electronic warfare system were updated in a more innovative way, and that all these successes mean great progress in the core technology of our-style tanks, he highly praised the scientists and technicians for their feats.

Saying that today when the subjective and objective environment has changed, it is impossible to build the armoured forces properly unless we give a correct definition of the military functions and role of tank and direction of its development in modern warfare and reconsider the viewpoint on the tank design first of all, he clarified the main orientation of the modernization of tanks and the tasks and ways for it.

He said that to create a large-scale capacity for producing state-of-the-art tanks and self-propelled guns and upgrade the overall armoured weapon systems of our armed forces in a short span of time by stepping up the modernization of this munitions enterprise and relevant enterprises is an important task for realizing the far-reaching idea and strategic plan of the Party Central Committee for bringing about a second revolution in the armoured forces.

Saying that he supports the plan for modernizing all production lines of the factory in particular, he noted that the plan will be deliberated in real earnest.

He said that the factory, which occupies a key position in developing tank and armoured forces, should make steady technological progress and bring about an upsurge in production and, at the same time, become a model in establishing the culture of the munitions industrial sector in the new century by paying due attention to improving the labour and production environment on an advanced basis.