SEOUL (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un put the economy front and center of an agenda-setting speech at the end of a key ruling party meeting, state media reported Saturday.
Kim’s New Year statements have been closely watched in recent years. This year, he focused on food security and development at a plenary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
The nation has been under a rigid self-imposed coronavirus blockade.
“The main task facing our party and people next year is to provide a sure guarantee for the implementation of a five-year plan and bring about a remarkable change in the state development and the people’s standard of living,” official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying.
He described the challenges of 2022 as “a great life-and-death struggle” and set “an important task for making radical progress in solving the food, clothing and housing problem for the people”, KCNA said.
The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting border closure saw the country record its biggest economic contraction in over two decades in 2020, according to the South Korean central bank.
Concerns have grown about a full-blown food crisis in North Korea, and a United Nations human rights expert warned in October that the most vulnerable were “at risk of starvation”.
Kim, who took power just over a decade ago after the death of his father Kim Jong Il, said battling the pandemic was one of the main goals for the coming year.
“Emergency epidemic prevention work should be made a top priority in the state work,” Kim said according to KCNA.
Analysts pointed to the impact of Covid as the reason for the sharpened focus on the economy.
Without making a direct reference to the United States or any other countries, Kim briefly said in his speech that Pyongyang would continue to build up its military capabilities over the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
“The increasingly unstable military environment on the Korean Peninsula and the international situation demand the strengthening of national defense capabilities,” KCNA quoted him as saying, without elaborating on what the measures would entail.
The United States has imposed rounds of unilateral sanctions against the North over its nuclear and missile programs since 2006. The UN has imposed its own bans as well.