North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un capped off his 10th year in power with a speech that made more mention of tractor factories and school uniforms than nuclear weapons or the United States, according to summaries shared by state media on Saturday.
North Korea’s main goals for 2022 will be jump-starting economic development and improving people’s lives as it faces a “great life-and-death struggle,” Kim said in a speech at the end of the 4th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).
he meetings coincided with the 10-year anniversary of Kim effectively assuming leadership of the country after the death of his father in 2011.
Kim has used previous speeches around the New Year to make major policy announcements, including launching significant diplomatic engagements with South Korea and the US.
But summaries of his speech published in North Korean state media made no specific mention of the US, with only a passing reference to unspecified discussions of inter-Korean relations and “external affairs”.
The domestic focus of the speech underscored the economic crises Kim faces at home, where self-imposed anti-pandemic border lockdowns have left North Korea more isolated than ever before.
“The basic tasks facing the part and the people the next year are to provide a firm guarantee for implementing the five-year plan and make remarkable changes in the national development and the people’s living,” Kim was quoted as saying.
