DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju (1) and DPRK Vice Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Ro Tu Chol (2), seen touring a KPA livestock breeding facility in May 2013, delivered the reports at the DPRK Cabinet’s second plenary meeting held on an disclosed date in July 2013 (Photo: KCNA file photo).
DPRK state media reported on 13 July (Saturday) that the DPRK Cabinet held its second plenary meeting (plenum) in 2013. Neither Korean nor English news items on the Cabinet meeting disclosed the date (KCNA reported on 15 July [Monday] that the meeting was “held recently”) of the plenary session. Attending the meeting were DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju and Vice Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Ro Tu Chol, “senior functionaries of the organs under direct control of the cabinet; directors of management bureaus; chairman of provincial, municipal, and country people’s committees; chairmen of provincial rural economic committees; chairman of provincial district planning committees; directors of provincial and daily necessities industrial management bureaus” and attending as observers were “managers of major plants and enterprises.”
The first agenda item at the Cabinet meeting was “death defyingly implementing the militant tasks set forth in respected and beloved Comrade Kim Jong Un’s historic letter of appeal ‘Let Us Usher in a New Heyday on All Fronts of Socialist Construction by Creating the Masikryo’ng [Masik Pass] Speed.” Premier Pak Pong Ju delivered a report on the first agenda item. The Cabinet meeting’s second agenda item was a report on “the fulfillment of the people’s economic plan in the first half of the year and on measures for successfully fulfilling the people’s economic plan in the third and fourth quarters. Vice Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Ro Tu Chol reported on the second agenda item.
After the reports were delivered, speeches were delivered by the plenary meeting’s participants. According to KCNA, Pak, Ro and the meeting’s speakers said “soldier-builders on Masik Pass are pushing forward several projects in a three dimensional way and breaking levels and records set in the past amid a high- pitched drive for creating the ‘speed on Masik Pass,’” that “reclaimers of the Sep’o tableland made shining achievements with the goal to reclaim more than 50 000 hectares of grassland and finish the construction of stock-breeding management center within this year” and that “fresh successes and innovations are being made in the construction of major projects including the construction of the Ch’o'ngch’o'ngang Power Stations in Tiers and apartment houses for scientists.” According to Minju Joson, all participants of the expanded meeting of the cabinet plenary session renewed their firm resolve to achieve great successes in this meaningful year’s economic work by thoroughly implementing the militant tasks set forth in the respected and beloved marshal’s New Year Address and historic letter of appeal.”
KCNA also reported that the meeting’s speakers noted that “unprecedented production swing is being effected in the different sectors of the national economy amid the efforts to carry out the tasks advanced by Marshal Kim Jong Un in his New Year Address and appeal” and said “the service personnel and people of the DPRK are faced with the heavy yet responsible tasks to usher in a new heyday on all fronts of socialist construction by working hard to create the “speed on Masik Pass” in hearty response to the historic appeal made by the Marshal while carrying through the tasks laid out in his New Year Address.” The meeting’s reporters and speakers also said that “in the midst of a hot wind of productive upsurges fiercely sweeping through all sectors of the people’s economy, including light industry and agriculture — the main fronts of this year’s economic construction — and the four leading sectors, the Ministry of Coal Industry, the Ministry of Machine Industry, and many other units overfulfilled the people’s economic plan in the first half of the year, and brilliant success was achieved particularly in fulfilling the June people’s economic plan through the vigorous struggle of the functionaries and working people of various sectors of the people’s economy who rose up vigorously, holding high the respected and beloved marshal’s historic letter of appeal” and that “the production of key industrial products increased amid a struggle to fulfill the people’s economic plan by each index during the first half of the year.”
The Cabinet plenary meeting’s speakers and debate participants “unanimously emphasized that all these achievements are the results of the wise leadership of the respected and beloved marshal, who clearly indicated the direction and ways of doing the economic work in this meaningful year’s New Year Address, led various sectors of the people’s economy by the hand every step of the way in the course of giving them on-the-spot guidance despite being so busy with leading the military-first revolution, and roused millions of soldiers and people to achieve great innovation and great leap by issuing his historic letter of appeal.” In the official report of the Cabinet meeting, Minju Joson quoted Kim Jong Un’s remark that “it is our party’s intention and determination to raise a hot wind of great innovation and great leap throughout the country by following and learning from the indomitable fighting spirit and fighting traits displayed by soldiers in the construction of the Masik Pass Skiing Ground.” According to KCNA after the reports, speeches and debates the DPRK Cabinet “adopted a relevant decision.”
The DPRK Cabinet resolved that “firm priority should be given to the equipment and materials needed for construction over carrying out construction work and should be responsibly supplied so that the Masik Pass soldier-builders can finish building the Masik Pass Skiing Ground within this year as intended by the respected and beloved marshal.” To that end the Cabinet instructed that “the building materials, metal, and forestry industrial sectors and other sectors should supply cement, steel materials, logs, and other materials needed for construction in a timely manner, and the machine industrial sector and other units should responsibly fulfill the tasks of supplying equipment by meticulously carrying out the production organization and command, and support the construction both materially and morally.”
The DPRK Cabinet also resolved that using the Masik Pass Skiing Ground workers as model, “important construction projects should be further accelerated, including the Sep’o tableland reclamation battle, the construction of the terraced Ch’o'ngch’o'n River Power Plant, Mt Paektu Military-First Youth Power Plant, and Wo’nsan Army-People Power Plant, the construction of Munsu Wading Pool, and the reconstruction and repair of the sports village in Ch’o'ngch’un Street” and that “relevant units should carry out all construction work strictly in accordance with the requirements of technical regulations and standard construction methods and decisively reinforce the struggle to improve the construction quality and construction supervision work, thereby erecting all buildings and other structures at the best level as monumental creations of the times, and supply units should unconditionally give priority to supplying the building materials over carrying out construction work.”
The Cabinet meeting also “presented a task of fiercely raising fiery winds of great innovation and great leap in the leading sectors of the the people’s economy above all else.” The coal industry “should give firm priority to prospecting and tunneling, expand coal production capacity by accelerating the development of new coal mines and pits, and increase coal production by actively introducing advanced coal mining methods.” The electrical power industry “should concentrate its efforts on operating existing power generating facilities at full capacity and systematically increase electric power production by mapping out measures for increasing the efficiency of power generating facilities.”
In order for “efforts. . .into shoring up” the metal industry the electric power and coal industries, in cooperation with the Ministry of Railways “should unconditionally produce and supply the electric power and coal needed for production at iron works and steel mills according to plan and channel efforts to materials transport.” The metal industry should also “shold fast to the chuch’e-orientation of metal industry as a lifeline and put spurs to the production of steel materials.” The Ministry of Railways should also “further increase the transport capacity by intensifying the production and repair of locomotives and freight cars, and meticulously carry out the transport organization and command to establish a strong discipline like the army, thereby further increasing the railway cargo transport.”
The DPRK Cabinet’s plenary meeting also “placed key emphasis on the need to bring about productive upsurges in light industrial and agricultural sectors — the main fronts of this year’s economic construction.” The country’s light industries “should adhere to the normalization of the people’s consumer goods production as a priority task and operate the modernized people’s consumer goods production bases at full capacity by meticulously carrying out the work for the supply of raw materials and other materials, and make a strong drive for improving the product quality, thereby making sure that more consumer goods are supplied to the people in this meaningful year, while also further accelerating the technical reconstruction of light industrial plants.”
With regard to food production, the DPRK’s agricultural sector “should do the fertilization and management of crops thoroughly in line with the demands of the chuch’e-based farming method without losing the momentum created in finishing the rice planting and sowing the seeds of field crops at the right time, thereby fulfilling this year’s grain production goal without fail” and the country’s fishing industry should “increase fish production by harmoniously combining deep-sea fishing and inshore fishing and expand sea farming, while more firmly consolidating the material and technical foundation of the fisheries industry.”
The cabinet meeting called for the machine-building industry to “make good use of the existing production foundations to produce more machine tools, vehicles, tractors, and various other machine products, and actively develop new modern machine products”, for the chemical industries to “increase the fertilizer production and put spurs to the production of synthetic fibers and synthetic resins, thus thoroughly achieving localization of light industrial raw materials,” for the building materials and forestry industries to “normalize the production at existing cement factories and increase log production” and for mining industries to “decisive increase the production of various minerals and processed products.”
On the matter of science and technology the DPRK Cabinet “indicated the need for all sectors and units of the people’s economy to vigorously carry out the battle of breaking through the ultra-cutting edge, holding high the party’s intention” saying that it “is necessary to decisively improve and reinforce guidance over the work of science and technology in line with the demands of the development of reality, firmly organize specialized scientific research institutes, reinforce the research and development activities of universities, and decisively increase the technology and product development capabilities of factories and enterprises” and that “investment in the work of science and technology should be increased, and the social traits of attaching importance to science and technology should be established in the whole country, while firmly adhering to the work for guaranteeing the working and living conditions of scientists and technicians.” The Cabinet also “set forth important tasks that arise in thoroughly implementing the party’s strategic line on simultaneously pushing forward economic construction and the building of a nuclear armed forces,” but did not disclose what those “tasks” were.
The Cabinet plenary meeting also addressed “issues of provincial, municipal, and county people’s committees revitalizing local industries according to the characteristics of their local areas; vigorously waging a struggle to develop all cultural fields, including education, public health, literature and art, and sports, to the level of an advanced civilized country; and all functionaries and working people inscribing Kim Jong Il patriotism deep on their hearts and sprucing up their villages, streets, and workplaces and parks and pleasure grounds in line with the demands of the military-first era and normalizing their management and operation, thereby bringing about a turnabout in the work for putting a new face on the land in this meaningful year.”
The DPRK Cabinet also reiterated its role “for further enhancing the responsibility and role of the cabinet and the functionaries of economic guidance organs” and “emphasized the need to resolve all issues that arise in the economic work by concentrating them on the cabinet according to the demands of the cabinet system, the system centered on the cabinet; the need to establish a strong discipline and order of unconditionally executing the cabinet’s decisions and instructions; and the need for economic guidance functionaries to make sure that leaps and innovations take place in every sentry post, while taking the lead in guiding the work of their respective sectors and units.”
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