North Korean leader Kim Jong-un praised what he called achievements and victories that strengthened national power and boosted the country’s prestige this year, as he opened a key political meeting to set new policy goals for 2024, state media reported Wednesday.
Experts said that during this week’s year-end plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, North Korea would likely hype its progress in arms development because the country lacks economic achievements amid persistent international sanctions and pandemic-related economic hardships.
In his opening-day speech at the meeting that began Tuesday, Kim defined 2023 “as a year of great turn and great change both in name and reality, in which (North Korea) left a great trace in the glorious course of development in the efforts to improve the national power and enhance the prestige of the country,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
KCNA said North Korea achieved a rapid advancement in its defense capabilities this year in the wake of the launch of its first military spy satellite in November and the introduction of other sophisticated weapons.
According to a recent assessment by South Korea’s state-run Rural Development Administration, North Korea’s grain production this year was estimated at 4.
