Monitoring desk
ISLAMABAD/SEOUL: North Korea’s parliament has outlined plans to the normalise the industrial production and meet its economic goals this year, despite the “worst-ever upheaval” amid the covid-19 pandemic in 2022.
The official KCNA news agency said that reclusive country’s rubber-stamp parliament, Supreme People’s Assembly, held a two-day meeting from Tuesday to discuss the government budget and economic policy.
Calls for normalising industries
According to Reuters, South Korea’s central bank has said North’s economy shrank in 2021 for the second straight year after suffering its most significant contraction in more than two decades a year before, hit by covid lockdowns and global sanctions over its arms programs.
Leader Kim Jong Un did not join a meeting, but Kim Tok Hun, the premier of the cabinet, reviewed the previous years’ work and laid out tasks this year for key industries.
Hun lauded the country for “successfully tackling the worst-ever upheaval since the country’s founding” amid the covid outbreak, despite “shortcomings” in implementing the previous year’s plans.
Kim said that the cabinet aims to expedite the production of overall sectors and make 2023 “a year of great turn and change in the course of development,” marking the 75th anniversary of the country’s foundation.
