SEOUL (SOUTH KOREA) – North Korea’s ruling party will be conducting a congress next year to chart out a new five-year plan, state media reported on Thursday. The move has been taken after a party meeting stated that there were delays in getting the national economy and living standards improved.
The plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party on Wednesday plans a congress for January so as to have a “a correct line of struggle and strategic and tactical policies”. This will be done after taking a look at the experiences from the past five years, the official KCNA news agency said.
The country has been dealing with international sanctions, even as it is grappling with damages from the recent flooding, in addition to the heavy impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
KCNA quoted the plenary as saying that goals for boosting the economy had been “seriously delayed and the people’s living standard not been improved remarkably,” .
Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, a North Korean economy expert at the US-based Stimson Center think-tank, said, “Auditing is often code for greater scrutiny into the financial affairs of various organs, institutions and enterprises,” he said. “And this scrutiny, in turn, often entails the state scavenging for more money and resources.”
After having announced the first five-year economic plan since the 1980s in 2016, Leader Kim Jong Un had also pledged to not use nuclear weapons unless the country’s sovereignty was under threat.
Last year, he vowed to work towards the country’s campaign to build a self reliant economy.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.