Kim Jong Un is briefed about products of the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory. In attendance, right, is his wife Ri Sol Ju (Photo: Rodong Sinmun).
KJU’s last observed appearance was his visit to the Pyongyang Teacher Training College
DPRK state media reported on January 25 (Thursday) that Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) and Ri Sol Ju (Ri So’l-chu) visited and inspected Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory. Also in attendance were Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Vice Chairman for Science and Education Pak Thae Song [Pak T’ae-so’ng], WPK Science and Education Department Director Choe Tong Myong [Ch’oe Tong-myo’ng] and WPK Organization Guidance Department Deputy Director and Personal Secretariat aide Jo Yong Won [Cho Yo’ng-wo’n].
Kim Jong Un tours a production shop at the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory while Ri Sol Ju inspects a product (Photo: KCNA/Rodong Sinmun).
Jong Un and Sol Ju first stopped off to the rooms chronicling the factory’s revolutionary and institutional histories. He said that the “factory, which was built in June 1946 as the nation’s first pharmaceutical industrial base on the personal initiative of President Kim Il Sung (Kim Il-so’ng), is associated with the warm love of Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il (Kim Cho’ng-il) for the people.” Jong Un stressed in his remarks that the factory’s “officials and employees should add luster to the undying feats of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong forever by dedicating their passion for creation and devoted efforts to the production of medicines with pride of holding the honorable post for the protection of the lives of the people and the promotion of their health.”
Kim Jong Un discusses production at the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory (Photo: Rodong Sinmun/KCNA).
Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju were briefed “in detail about the production of medicines” and toured the packaging materials section, Western and Koryo (traditional) medicine shops and other areas of the premises. Jong Un stressed the “need for the factory to put on a normal basis the production of various medicines for the promotion of the people’s health and the medical treatment and prevention of diseases” and he urged “the relevant sectors to supply in time the raw and other materials and technical means needed for the medicine production.”
Kim Jong Un greets workers at the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory prior to a commemorative photo-op (Photo: KCNA/Rodong Sinmun).
He said that “sustained big efforts should be directed to grasping the global trend of pharmaceutical industrial development and introducing the advanced technology in order to study and develop new highly efficacious medicines of good quality and widely use them in the treatment and prevention of diseases.” Kim Jong Un issued “tasks to remodel the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory on a more modern basis.” He said that was his plan “to turn the factory into a standard one in the country’s pharmaceutical industry and renovate on a modern basis all other pharmaceutical factories throughout the country as a model.” Jong Un added that the “upgrading of the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory and the Hu’ngnam Pharmaceutical Factory should be pushed forward in a bold way to make this an important occasion in laying a springboard for rapid progress in the pharmaceutical industrial sector” and he took “measures of warm affection” to that effect.
Commemorative photograph of Kim Jong Un, Ri Sol Ju, senior WPK cadres and the employees and officials of the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory (Photo: Rodong Sinmun).
Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju, and the senior officials accompanying them, then posed for a commemorative photograph with the factory’s employees, managers and functionaries.
