North Korea begins key meeting to define 2023 policies
Seoul, Dec 27 (EFE).- North Korean state media announced on Tuesday the start of an important Workers’ Party plenary meeting in which the regime’s foreign and economic policies for the coming year are to be outlined.
State news agency KCNA reported that leader Kim Jong-un attended Monday’s session to discuss goals for 2023 as “unpredictable difficulties constantly threatening the existence and development of our state and people are cropping up repeatedly.”
“The Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) was convened (…) at a historic time when the entire Party, the whole country and all the people vow to make a vigorous struggle in the new year 2023,” the KCNA statement said.
The agenda includes five main items, including a review of 2022’s main state policies, a work plan for 2023, the implementation of this year’s budget, and a budget draft for next year.
Regarding the first point, Kim referred to the “successes and progress” of his country during “this year’s unprecedentedly arduous and fierce struggle,” KCNA said.
The North Korean leader clarified the main objectives that must be achieved in 2023 in key areas of the country’s economy, such as the metal, chemical, electrical power, coal and machinery industries, and in other fields such as construction and agriculture.
The start of the plenary meeting comes after several North Korean drones crossed the border with South Korea on Monday, forcing the deployment of combat planes and helicopters to destroy them, according to the South Korean military, which in turn sent drones to the North to carry out reconnaissance operations.
The dispatch of these drones and the start of the sole-party meeting coincide with heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula due to the record number of weapons tests that Pyongyang has carried out this year and the joint military exercises with which Seoul and Washington are responding. EFE
asb-emg/tw
