N.Korea holds plenary meeting to implement strategic tasks

Seoul, Feb 9 The North Korean ruling party held a plenary meeting to further implement the strategies adopted at the eighth Party Congress last month, a state media report said on Tuesday.

In the report, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that leader Kim Jong-un attended the second plenary meeting of the eighth Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) on Monday.

Kim said the WPK Central Committee should powerfully lead the masses to implement the decisions, stressing the need to provide party organisations and their members with practical means for innovation which would help bring about practical change and substantial progress from the first year of the five-year plan, Xinhua news agency quoted the KCNA report as saying.

He sharply "criticised the passive and self-protecting tendencies revealed by the state economic guidance organs in the course of setting this year's goals, and stressed the principled matters for overcoming the tendencies and organising the economic work in an innovative and meticulous way", the report said.

As the decisions made at the party congress are mid- and long-term tasks to be fulfilled during the coming five years, it is necessary to examine this year's plans down to details at the plenary meeting, Kim said.

He also indicated important goals to be achieved this year by key industrial fields including electric power and coal industries, and by the fields of railway transport, construction and building materials, light industry and commerce, as well as practical ways to attain them, according to the report.

At the eighth WPK Congress last month, North Korea unveiled a new five-year economic development plan with focus on self-reliance to face the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and international sanctions.

( With inputs from IANS )