opinion

The year 2024 was a meaningful year in which the validity of the policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which is aimed at achieving simultaneous, balanced and rapid development of the whole country, was powerfully demonstrated.

Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the WPK, energetically led the work to implement the policy on regional development in the new era throughout the year with the unshakable determination to rapidly improve the material and cultural living standards of the regional people and further accelerate the overall development of socialism by completely transforming the regional-industry factories across the country on an annual basis for 10 years.

In the 10th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK held in January last year, Kim Jong Un said that it is the immutable principle of the WPK and the government that there may be differences between regions in geographical setting, resources, economic potentials and living environment, but there should be no backward region in the aspect of the people's living in the DPRK territory. He then set forth a new regional development policy designed for the Party to keep hold on the construction of modern regional-industry factories in 20 counties every year as an unerring policy task, carry it out successfully and thus raise a level higher the basic material and cultural living standards of the people in all cities and counties, in another word, across the country within ten years.

The 19th Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK confirmed and clarified an epochal milestone in the development of the regional industry, called the Regional Development 20×10 Policy.

On February 28 last year, Kim Jong Un attended the ground-breaking ceremony of regional-industry factories in Songchon County for Regional Development 20x10 Policy and delivered a meaningful speech to declare the start of a crucial revolutionary undertaking aimed at promoting the regional people’s wellbeing, before pressing the button for blasting to signal the beginning of the construction project.

Afterwards, he continued a tireless revolutionary journey for regional rejuvenation and in the course of his on-site inspections, scientific and revolutionary plans for the transformative development of regions were set forth, proactive measures were taken for implementing them and a new phase of regional development was expanded massively and steadily.

In July last year, he convened a consultative meeting concerning the regional economic development in the city of Sinpho, in which he analysed the economic potentials of the sea and the importance and significance of the effective exploitation and use of resources in the coastal cities and counties and put forward practical tasks and ways to that end.

After the consultative meeting, he went along the sandy beach at the construction site of an offshore farm without a pier even for a small boat in order to go on a dangerous ship journey and look round the offshore farming ground where the propeller of the ship might be caught in the ropes of fixed nets. There he gave detailed instructions on building the Sinpho City Offshore Farm into a new model base for offshore farming.

As he inspected the construction sites of several regional-industry factories in August last year, the General Secretary took new important steps to hasten the radical development and overall rejuvenation of regions.

He indicated a new orientation of stepping up the historic cause of regional rejuvenation by simultaneously promoting the construction of public health facilities, sci-tech diffusion bases and grain management facilities along with the ongoing construction of regional-industry factories, in connection with the dynamic enforcement of the Regional Development 20×10 Policy of the Party for bringing about a remarkable improvement in the regional economy and the people’s living standards. He also clarified the stand of the Party Central Committee to take crucial measures to that end.

A few days later, he convened a consultative meeting for regional development work and stated that the Party’s policy on regional development in the new era should not be confined to the construction of light-industry factories but should be a comprehensive policy encompassing public health, science and education. Only then can it make a genuine contribution to the improvement of regional people’s material and cultural life and radically boost the efficiency of regional development, he said. And he specified all the principles to be adhered to in building advanced city and county hospitals, sci-tech dissemination bases and grain management facilities.

In the important speech, entitled “Let Us Make Redoubled Efforts for the Prosperity of Our Great State”, he delivered on the occasion of the 76th founding anniversary of the DPRK, he referred to the importance and significance of the three construction projects added to the Regional Development 20×10 Policy. Saying that sci-tech dissemination centres, which were already envisaged as an additional project, are planned to be built on an expansion basis as comprehensive bases for cultural activities, he pointed to the need to build in cities and counties the multifunctional cultural complexes embracing the commercial network and various other welfare facilities with fine hygienic environment where residents can see films and conduct sports and amusement activities, not confined to sci-tech diffusion bases equipped with modern IT means.

Under his energetic guidance, regional-industry factories were inaugurated in Songchon County on December 20 last year as the first creations of the regional development policy and the Sinpho City Offshore Farm on December 28 as a monumental structure representing the future transformed looks of coastal cities and counties.

Thanks to the devoted efforts of the General Secretary, who takes all pains by himself and provides the people and rising generation with only a better life and brighter future, the tasks of regional development, which are difficult to decide on even on ordinary days and in a comfortable environment, were set as the goals of the WPK and the government and are being carried out without fail.