North Korea’s parliament has vowed to develop its economy and improve its citizens’ livelihoods despite the “difficult and complicated problems” it faced last year due to international sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, its state media said on Tuesday.
The 14th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) held its sixth session on February 6-7 to discuss the progress made in various economic sectors. During the session, Deputy Premier Kim Tok Hun noted the Cabinet’s efforts in undertaking “the struggle for carrying out the Party’s economic policy,” which emphasised “reinforcing production in all sectors of the national economy.” The metal and chemical industries were recognised as “key links.”
“Last year the economic construction field faced more difficult and complicated problems than expected due to the hostile forces’ persistent sanctions and worldwide health crisis, but waged persevering struggle for putting the country’s economy on a new orbit of development,” a report on the meeting by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) noted.
The famine in North Korea is purely man-made. This is why the North Korean regime starves 25 millions of its citizens on purpose. Starvation is a torture and it is unbelievably cruel for the people who are subjected to it. #kimjongun #northkorea @JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/LoRcfryDv7
— Yeonmi Park (@YeonmiParkNK) July 5, 2021
“We are now faced with [the] heavy yet responsible task to lay a sure guarantee for implementing the five-year plan and make evident changes in developing the economy and improving the standard of people’s living,” the KCNA report said.
It further stressed that this year, the Cabinet is tasked with “meticulously” carrying out “economic organisation and command for the overall economic development of the country,” with a special focus on the metal and chemical industries and implementation of the five-year plan.
Although leader Kim Jong Un did not attend the meeting, he has been urging party officials to work towards improving the living standards of its citizens, with the country reportedly facing a “grim” economic situation.
In a speech last year, Kim said that North Korea faces “huge tasks for adjusting and developing the state economy” and accomplishing the economic goals. Similarly, over the past year, the secretive regime has hinted at a dire economic situation, which has created a famine-like situation in the country.
Last July, Kim told his ruling party that the country’s food situation was “growing tense.” In another rare admission of economic strife in April, the leader compared the current economic crisis to the North Korean famine of the 1990s, which led to the death of around three million people.
Against this backdrop, the United States (US) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called on North Korea on Monday to defund its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and divert the funds to prioritise the needs of its people. The US has imposed several sanctions on the regime over the development of its nuclear weapons program.
During Pyongyang’s humanitarian crisis, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea, has also previously called for UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea to be eased in order to “facilitate humanitarian and life-saving assistance and to enable the promotion of the right to an adequate standard of living of ordinary citizens.”