Cabinet Plenary Meeting 2018

A poster released on January 30, 2018 which says “A Revolutionary General Offensive” in the red flag along the top and “All to be Carrying Out the Important Tasks Set Forth by Kim Jong Un in his New Year’s Address” along the bottom (Photo: Rodong Sinmun).

An expanded plenary meeting of the DPRK Cabinet was held on or around January 19, 2018.  DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju [Pak Pong-chu], Cabinet Ministers and Commission Chairs attended the meeting.  Also in attendance as observers were Cabinet Vice Ministers, Provincial People’s Committee Chairs, Rural Management Committee Chairs, leading functionaries of state management bureaus and guidance commissions, Provincial Region Planning Committee Chairs, leading officials of local industry management bureaus, managers of “major factories and enterprises” and other “responsible functionaries of agencies under the Cabinet.”

The agenda item was “measures to carry out the programmatic tasks set forth by respected and beloved supreme leader Comrade Kim Jong Un [Kim Cho’ng-u’n] in his 2018 New Year’s Address.”  Speeches were made and a discussion was held.  According to KCNA, speakers noted “that the officials and working people in the economic field made signal achievements under the guidance of the Supreme Leader, courageously smashing the mean and vicious sanctions of the US imperialists and other hostile forces.”  According to Minju Joson, that “measures to thoroughly carry out militant tasks were put on the agenda at a dramatic time when millions of soldiers and people holding respected and beloved supreme leader Comrade Kim Jong Un’s historic New Year address amid boiling emotion and excitement were rushing forth as one into the Mallima  great upswing march as an answer to the party’s militant appeal for achieving new victories on all fronts of socialist powerful state construction through revolutionary all-out offensives.”

Meeting speakers said that Jong Un “glorified last year, a year of crucial importance for the implementation of the five-year strategy for national economic development, into a year of heroic struggles and great victories that set immortal milestones in the history of socialist powerful state construction through the energy of unassisted self-development during his wise organization and guidance of the struggle to achieve the historic cause of completing national nuclear armed forces” and they noted that “functionaries and working people in the economic sector had boldly smashed the cowardly and vicious sanctions maneuvers of the US imperialists and other hostile forces and achieved proud accomplishments under the excellent and sophisticated leadership of the comrade supreme leader.”

According to KCNA the meeting “analyzed and reviewed the successes and defaults made in last year’s struggle to build an economic power and improve the people’s living standard”  and discussed “matters arising in enhancing the independence and Chuch’e character of the national economy and improving the people’s living standard this year marking the 70th anniversary of the DPRK, as required by the revolutionary counter strategy laid down at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.”

DPRK Cabinet and Premier’s Office Building in central Pyongyang on January 5, 2018 (Photo: KCNA/Rodong Sinmun).

According to Minju “the struggle to realize the chuch’e orientation of the metallurgical industry was powerfully undertaken to establish an our-style oxygen-blast furnace at the Kim Ch’aek Iron and Steel Complex for the normalization of pig iron production based on anthracite coal” and “the independent foundation of the chemical industry grew stronger, opening up the prospects for occupying the chemical hill of the five-year strategy.”  Light industry factories “held high the banner of chuch’e orientation, forcefully pushed forward the modernization of various production processes with our technology and our equipment, and provided a basis for making a diverse range of people’s consumer goods of increased varieties and upgrading product quality.”

The Cabinet plenary meeting emphasized “priority issues and put forth methodological issues, including the issue of endlessly extending the time of great prosperity in the construction sector through the might of great army-people unity; the issue of continuously making a forceful push for the work of transforming the landscape of the homeland; the issue of creating greater material wealth with ministries, central agencies, provincial people’s committees, and all sectors and units of the people’s economy forcefully waging production growth and conservation struggles through the general mobilization of their own technological capabilities and economic potentials; the issue of opening wide a
breakthrough for invigoration on the overall economic fronts through the strength of science and technology with priority firmly placed on science and technology; and the issue of innovating economic operations and command and establishing active measures to make the socialist enterprise responsibility system achieve desired effects.”

Officials of DPRK Cabinet Ministries and agencies participate in group exercise in Kim Il-so’ng Square in Pyongyang on January 14, 2018 (Photo: Rodong Sinmun).

The meeting also stressed the “the need to continue to put priority efforts into the work of developing socialist culture across the board, including education, health care, sports, and literature, and to more strongly forge the country’s defense industry and self-defensive defense capabilities” and stated that  “the success of this year’s battle for thoroughly carrying out the programmatic tasks set forth by the respected and beloved comrade supreme leader in his historic New Year address hinged on the way economic guiding functionaries worked, and it pointed out that all functionaries must carry deep in their hearts a sublime sense of mission as those in charge of the country’s economic work, burn their hearts with endless loyalty toward the party all the time, highly uphold the militant tasks set forth by the party, and exercise unlimited devotion and self-sacrifice in the struggle for their realization.”  Meeting participants “cemented firm vows to meaningfully mark the 70th founding anniversary of the Republic with proud economic construction results by death-defyingly carrying out the militant tasks set forth in the respected and beloved comrade supreme leader’s historic New Year address with the ideology and spirit of the second plenary meeting of the Seventh Party Central Committee inscribed deep in their hearts.”

View Original Article
Stay informed about our latest
news, publications, & uploads:
I'm interested in...
38 North: News and Analysis on North Korea