Shortly ago, a staff reporter had a talk with Kang Myong Ryong, vice-chairman of the South Phyongan Provincial People’s Committee, over the ongoing implementation of the regional development policy.

Reporter : The first entities for the Regional Development 20×10 Policy adopted and pursued by our Party appeared in your province last year, didn’t they?

Kang : Certainly. Regional-industry factories have got into operation in Songchon and Sukchon counties in our province.

The regional-industry factories include foodstuff, daily necessities and garment producers, and they are now turning out various kinds of products as good as those from the central-industry factories, to the delight of the local inhabitants.

The locals say in unison that their counties have changed in the present era and that they feel as if they are in a dream. They actually feel the ideal society they have dreamed of is coming closer.

Reporter : What kind of projects are going on in your province?

Kang : The newly-opened factories are making strenuous efforts to create raw material bases, secure raw and other materials and improve the quality of their products.

In particular, Songchon County is known to the whole country as a place where our Party solemnly signalled the start of the regional-industry revolution and ensured the regional-industry factories were inaugurated ahead of others as the first entities of the revolution. We will help the county give full play to the vitality of the regional development policy of the Party.

This year it is the turn of Pukchang and Sinyang counties.

Groundbreaking ceremonies took place there last February. The government has provided a complete set of modern construction equipment and materials such as steel and timber, and the officers and men of the 124th regiment of the Korean People’s Army dispatched to our province take full charge of the construction. So the success is assured.

Our province has 19 cities and counties.

Regional-industry factories, plus modern public health facilities, leisure complexes and grain storage stations, are to be built in all these cities and counties in the coming ten years since last year. By then, a radical change will have taken place in the material and cultural life of the residents in the province.

Reporter: The reality shows that our Party’s regional development policy is the driving force behind the regional rejuvenation in the new era. What do you think of it?

Kang : You’re right. Still fresh in my memory is what the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said in February last year as he addressed the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of regional-industry factories in Songchon County. He said that anyone who was born on this land should lead an abundant and civilized life under the socialist policy of the state, whether they live in the capital city or regions, in towns or mountain villages, and it is the core of the new policy of regional development to see to it that they do so without fail. And he also took part in the inauguration ceremony of the factories and wished the county a happy future.

Holding high the slogan “Everything for the improvement of the people’s standard of living!” we will scrupulously organize and manage the work to implement the Party’s policy and thus proudly write a new chapter in the history of regional rejuvenation in our province.

Yang Ryon Hui