economy

The regional-industry factories in Kimhwa County have put the production of quality condiments and various consumer goods like soap and notebook on a normal track to improve the material life of the locals.

The county, where mountains make up 80% of its area, has paid special attention to the building of raw material bases for several years, regarding it as an issue directly connected with normal production at those factories.

Its raw material bases covered only scores of hectares of land in the past and their soil fertility was poor, resulting in low per-hectare yields.

The county set a target of providing local-industry factories with necessary raw materials by local efforts, regarding the self-reliant and multilateral development of it as a lifeline.

It worked to put new land under plough and turn barren land into fertile soil by carpeting it with humus soil.

As a result, the area of its raw material bases increased to more than 950 hectares.

It laid foundations for ensuring normal production of organic fertilizer and liquid humic acid fertilizer to improve soil fertility and increased per-hectare yield by introducing advanced scientific farming methods.

Therefore, the per-hectare corn yield increased twice and the bean harvest 1.5 times. And the introduction of the field responsibility system within the framework of the sub-workteam management system has highly aroused the employees’ enthusiasm for production.

The county put main efforts into increasing the forests of economic value in line with the characteristic features of it as a mountainous area.

Based on the correct calculation of the demand for soap per family, it increased the area of Evodia daniellii forests (oil extracted from its fruits are the main raw material for soap) by over three times as much as previously and secured 200 hectares of forests for paper production in the Kujin-ri area to reap considerable benefits from them.

The county’s paper mill built in an ecofriendly and energy- and labour-saving way has secured raw materials for three years’ production at present. It is now recognized as a profitable factory as it has applied cost-saving production methods while using good species of poplar and Larix lepolepis they planted as the main raw materials. Such products from the mill as wallpaper and flooring paper are making a big contribution to the construction of rural houses which is being pushed as an important state affair.

What draws special attention in the building of raw material bases in the county is that it applies various management methods to use land in a three-dimensional way.

While increasing its financial incomes through extensive cultivation of mulberry trees, the county works to expand the area of fruit-bearing trees including black chokeberry and large chestnut trees in a systematic way to provide favourable conditions for the production of functional foodstuffs.

The county also encourages industrial establishments and families to plant such oil-bearing crops as castor beans, sunflower and perilla around workplaces, villages and non-farming land so as to raise the land utility rate, while securing raw materials by employing such methods as procurement and exchange.