economy

Of the more than 200 cities and counties of the DPRK, some are mountainous and others are located in the plain areas. And there are those on the seaside with both fields and mountains. The seaside areas also vary in conditions according to whether they are on the east or west coast, and so do the inland areas according to whether they are in the northern highlands or central mountainous region.

There are those which are renowned for mineral water and hot springs and world-famous scenic spots.

The geographical environment and economic potentials of cities and counties differ from each other, but all of them have natural and geographical conditions peculiar to them such as the resources and possibilities to develop regional economy to suit their actual conditions.

That is why the Workers’ Party of Korea adopted the policy on making effective use of the mountains in the mountainous regions and the sea in the coastal areas long ago, and has since clarified the orientation and ways for cities and counties to develop the regional industry in a modern and distinctive style by relying on the locally available raw materials and resources.

Today the ambitious regional development programme has entered the stage of widespread implementation to successfully bring about an epochal change of the 10-year revolution for regional development. Accordingly, the WPK held a consultative meeting on the development of regional economy on the seashore of the city of Sinpho in South Hamgyong Province in July and set forth practical tasks and ways for the coastal cities and counties to effectively exploit and use the economic potentials and resources of the sea.

It is the invariable will of the WPK to bring about a substantial improvement in the economic development of the coastal cities and counties and their people’s living standards by building a new model base for shallow-sea culture and generalizing it and turn all cities and counties across the country into civilized and rich places that are good to live in and are self-supporting and developed in a many-sided way.

Under this policy of the WPK, projects have been undertaken extensively in the DPRK to widely exploit and make effective use of natural and economic resources in the regions in order to ensure the supply of raw materials needed for normalizing and revitalizing the production at modern regional-industry factories and vigorously open up a new turning point of progress peculiar to cities and counties and regional development by securing the independence of and propellant for regional economic development and thereby their vitality is being demonstrated.

It is evidenced by the normalization of production at the regional-industry factories in Kimhwa County which have been modernized as required by the new era.

The regional industry-factories in the county, a remote mountainous county which ranked last in the living conditions of the people and economic capacity across the country, mass-produce various kinds of quality consumer goods by relying on local raw materials. The reality provides an ample justification for the effective and efficient use of natural and economic resources of the region along with the modernization of regional-industry factories.

The same is true of the city of Sinpho, which is now the focus of attention of the whole country.

The city, which has so far been recognized as a region with infertile land and poor economic potentials, will become the richest of all cities and counties in the country after three to four years according to the grand plan of the WPK.

In the course of the dynamic drive for improving the people’s living standards by developing the regional economy to become truly independent while preserving their own characters, the Korean people cherish more strongly their belief that if they give full play to the advantages and potentials peculiar to their regions, they can surely make a comfortable and honest living by their own efforts.