DPRK’s Orientation of Advance in 2024

At the end of December last year, an enlarged meeting of the Ninth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea was held in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It set forth the country’s orientation of advance in 2024, which is now a focus of international concern.

What is most noteworthy is the general orientation of work in the new year.

Henceforth, the DPRK’s general orientation is to further expand and actively utilize the favourable situation and phase achieved through an unyielding struggle, thus successfully implementing the programme set forth at the Eighth Congress of the WPK and providing a springboard for a new advance in the future.

It is because the year 2024 is the fourth year of its effort to implement the five-year plan set forth at the Eighth Congress of the WPK and a year decisive of success or failure in attaining the objectives advanced at the Congress.

Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the WPK, said in the plenary meeting that the focus for the upcoming year should be put on implementing those decisions of the Congress that fell short of being carried out and addressing the challenges hindering their fulfilment so as to further expand the successes which had been achieved so far, prove their worth and turn all the planned tasks into brilliant fruitions.

What is also noteworthy is the fact that the plenary meeting specified how to strengthen the national administrative and economic work system and order and clarified the principles and practical ways for the Cabinet to retain the lifeblood of the national economy and propel the purposeful economic development as befits the mission of the overall state administrative body entrusted by the Constitution. 

All the sectors of the national economy should give impetus to the production growth and finish the readjustment and reinforcement projects at the earliest possible date. In the new year, too, the 12 major goals will be prioritized and efforts will be concentrated on their fulfilment. The plenary meeting set forth the major objectives to be reached in the key industrial sectors including metallurgical, chemical, electric power, coal-mining, machine-building industries and rail transport.

The plenary meeting defined it as the WPK’s orientation of development of the machine-building industry at the present stage to upgrade the Ryongsong Machine Complex, a parent business of the country’s machine-building industry, to become a standard and model of modernization during the term of its Eighth Central Committee and, on the basis of the experience gained, to modernize the Taean Heavy Machine Complex, the Ragwon General Machine Enterprise and other major machine-building factories during the period of a new five-year economic development plan and clarified the ways for its implementation. It also referred to all the tasks to be tackled in promoting more dynamically the construction of the capital city and the rural housing construction, an important task started according to the historic decision of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK, and to the practical tasks for realizing the grand long-term construction plan envisaged by the WPK Central Committee.

Kim Jong Un advanced specific tasks and ways for steadily increasing agricultural productivity, among others, setting the strategy and the targets by stage for the development of farming machines and promoting the mechanization of the rural economy on the basis of the survey and evaluation of the country’s overall agricultural infrastructure and agro-technical capability, completing the country’s irrigation system, and hastening the reclamation of tideland without letup.

In addition, the plenary meeting set forth the tasks for the light industry in 2024; the sector should put the main emphasis on attaining its primary objective of improving the quality of consumer goods and condiments. It also referred to the tasks for stepping up the modernization of light-industry and regional-industry factories, developing sericulture and improving the commercial, public catering and welfare service works.

Of special note is the fact that the plenary meeting analysed and evaluated the perilous security environment in the Korean peninsula on the brink of a nuclear war and the nature of the hostile forces’ moves for military confrontation, and clarified a crucial policy decision to accelerate the radical development of the country’s defence capability.

Last year the US and its vassal forces perpetrated vicious anti-DPRK confrontational moves which reached the extremes unprecedented in history in their reckless, provocative and dangerous nature.

Openly talking about “end of regime” in the DPRK, the US president, together with his south Korean counterpart, cooked up the so-called “Washington Declaration,” an anti-DPRK nuclear confrontation programme, and newly organized and started the operation of the “Nuclear Consultative Group” aimed at the joint planning and execution of the use of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, he is fanatically and overtly developing a nuclear war scenario against the DPRK before the eyes of the world by using the "NCG."

The reality shows that the US’s inveterate hostile acts against the DPRK are not just confined to rhetorical threat or demonstration purposes but have evidently evolved into a stage of execution which can lead to actual military actions and thus trigger a conflict between the armed forces of both sides.

Kim Jong Un said that, as shown by all the facts, the despicable confrontational nature of the US and its favourite stooges had not changed basically but was rather getting more undisguised and more vicious.

In light of this, the plenary meeting called on the munitions industry to reliably guarantee the successful implementation of the WPK’s defence development strategy by further expanding the successes made in consolidating the self-supporting foundation of the defence industry and in developing and producing military hardware.

It stressed the need for the nuclear weapons sector to lay a reliable foundation for steadily increasing the production of nuclear weapons and wage a vigorous struggle for carrying out the nuclear weapons production plan in 2024. It also set forth the major targets and militant tasks for the missile development and production sector.

It entrusted the space development sector with the task to launch three reconnaissance satellites additionally in 2024 on the basis of the experience gained in the successful launch and operation of the first one in 2023 and adopted nationwide full-scale measures for dynamically accelerating the development of space science and technology.

It set it as the main task facing the shipbuilding industry sector to increase the underwater and surface combat strength of the navy by bringing about the second revolution of the warship-building industry and to carry out at an early date the remaining tasks for attaining the major five-point goals for developing the defence capabilities. It also stressed the need for the unmanned aircraft industry and the radar and electronic warfare sectors to develop and produce various kinds of unmanned military hardware and powerful electronic warfare means in conformity with the characteristics of modern warfare.

The plenary meeting put forward the tasks for concentrating main efforts on the development of relations with the ruling parties of socialist countries to further expand and strengthen the external influence of the country, consolidating the foundation of support for and solidarity with the DPRK by further developing the relations with the anti-imperialist independent countries opposed to the hegemony strategy of the US and the West in conformity with ever-changing international situation and waging a dynamic anti-imperialist joint action and struggle in the international arena.

All these policy decisions and tasks are an expression of the steadfast standpoint of the WPK and the government of the DPRK which value more than anything else and give top and absolute priority to the dignity and sovereignty of the state and defence of the people’s security.

The DPRK will implement its intentions and decisions without fail in 2024.