North Korea has formally launched a party committee dedicated to the development of its economically challenged rural regions. This initiative comes as local areas are dealing with economic difficulties stemming from sanctions and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The inauguration of the committee followed just about a week after the country’s leader Kim Jong Un made a rare public acknowledgement of the dire state of his country’s economy, urging ruling party officials to take immediate action.
“In the midst of actively promoting organizational work to thoroughly and perfectly implement transformative strategies for local industrial development, the non-permanent 20×10 Local Development Central Implementation Committee has embarked on its official projects,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday.
The 20×10 Local Development Policy refers to a measure announced by Kim earlier this month, aimed at improving the North’s struggling local economies. The measure involves constructing industrial factories throughout 20 counties across the nation each year, and ultimately improve the living standards of the North Korean people within the next 10 years.
Led by a Presidium of the Politburo member of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, Jo Yong Won, the committee will “oversee and guide the construction progress, including the design and construction of new local industrial factories, as well as the development projects for raw material bases,” KCNA said.
The importance of the newly established committee is reflected in the fact that Jo also holds a position as a secretary of the Secretariat of the WPK, a close associate and advisory body of the North Korean leader. Vice Premier Pak Jong Gun, whose main responsibility is overseeing the nation’s economy, was also included in the committee.
Kim last week labeled the country’s ongoing economic problem as a “serious political issue,” saying that his government was unable “to provide even basic necessities such as basic foodstuffs, groceries, and consumer goods to the local people.”
“The overall local economy is currently in a very pitiful state, lacking even basic conditions,” Kim said at a politburo plenary meeting last week, according to KCNA.
North Korea’s economy contracted for the third consecutive year in 2022, according to South Korea’s Statistics Korea report in December. The latest available data showed a 0.2% year-on-year drop in North Korea’s GDP in 2022, following a 0.1% decrease in 2021, and a 4.5% contraction in 2020.
On a closer look, the country’s manufacturing industry shrank for six consecutive years since 2017, with it contracting 4.6% in 2022, according to the latest available data from the South’s central bank, Bank of Korea. The economic impact of this to the nation may have been severe as the sector accounts more than 20% of the North’s entire economy.
A major mission of the committee is to revive the manufacturing sector.
“Establishing practical measures to solidify local raw material bases and ensure the normalization of production in local industrial factories is also one of the important tasks of the Central Implementation Committee,” according to KCNA.
Kim has been facing issues related to the economy and food shortages since he assumed power in 2012. These problems have been intensified recently amid the aftermath of COVID-19 and international sanctions.
North Korea shut down its borders for the COVID quarantine at the expense of its trade with China, while it has continued its nuclear and missile development, putting its economy under the United Nations’ sanctions regime.
Amid economic challenges, North Korea has recently been ramping up its military threats in the Korean peninsula. According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Tuesday, the North fired multiple “unidentified cruise missiles” off its western coast at around 7 a.m.
North Korea also test-fired submarine-launched cruise missiles Sunday, with Kim ordering officials to expedite his country’s nuclear submarine development.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.