Kim Jong Un unveiled his domestic and foreign policy agenda for the next five years as he kicked off North Korea’s biggest political event.
Inaugurating the ninth Workers’ Party of Korea Congress in Pyongyang, Mr Kim said his country had made significant progress since the last such event, which was held during the Covid pandemic in 2021, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
The congress is where the North Korean government spells out its major social, economic and military policy goals.
In his address, Mr Kim offered to fix North Korea’s economy after noting that the country had made substantial economic gains over the past five years and established a firmer regional footing that marked an "irreversible" strengthening of its status.
"This created favourable conditions and circumstances for giving a greater spur to our socialist construction," he said.
"Our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people's standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible.”
Mr Kim did not directly mention the longstanding conflict with the US and South Korea that has seen Washington impose sweeping sanctions on the East Asian country.
Ahead of the event, Mr Kim had vowed to expand North Korea’s military and set next-stage plans for bolstering the nuclear programme.
Analysts said at the time Mr Kim’s remarks indicated that the country would reveal a new military plan at the Workers' Party congress.
The congress is a forum to decide on the next political, economic and military priorities, and issue messages to the world.
Mr Kim had visited various military and economic facilities ahead of the congress, such as a cruise missile launch site and a large-scale greenhouse farm, to promote his accomplishments in national policy.
“Our army has proved before the times and history that it is its mettle and original features to quicken more enormous and vigorous strides for loyalty and feats the greater the trust in and expectation for it is,” Mr Kim said.
“As you’re all prepared for, this is a year of tremendous transformation, when the fighting front of our army will become more widened and which will demand more strenuous efforts. Likewise, the coming five years that will be indicated by the ninth congress of the party will be years when our army’s outstanding role that no one else can perform will become further enhanced.”
Mr Kim was speaking at the defence ministry on the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army.
At the last party congress, Mr Kim had adopted a resolution to bolster his country’s “nuclear deterrent”.
Establishing a nuclear force, he had said, was “a strategic and predominant goal”.
“This plan is likely to include securing heat-resisting atmospheric re-entry technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which North Korea has not yet proven through testing, as well as advancing nuclear-powered submarines and military reconnaissance satellites,” Cho Han Bum, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told South China Morning Post.
In December, Mr Kim asked his officials to ramp up the production of missiles and artillery shells in 2026 and build new factories to meet the needs of the military.
According to the KCNA report at the time, “to further expand the overall production capacity” and keep pace with the military’s demand, the leader also ordered the building of new munitions plants.
Pyongyang already possesses a range of nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike the US as well as its allies across Asia.
Mr Kim has called on the US to abandon its insistence that the North give up its nuclear weapons before talks can resume. He also didn’t respond to an offer from Donald Trump to meet while the American leader was in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit earlier last year.
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