North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has said the faltering economy will be the national priority this year as the country faces a “great life-and-death struggle”.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He was speaking at the end of a key ruling party meeting, which coincides with him being in power for 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A self-imposed coronavirus blockade has left North Korea struggling with food shortages.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There was no direct mention of the US or South Korea in his speech.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He said battling the pandemic was one of the main goals for the coming year: “Emergency epidemic prevention work should be made a top priority in the state work,” he is quoted as saying by KCNA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But he also said Pyongyang would continue to strengthen its defence capabilities because of an increasingly unstable military environment on the Korean peninsula.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He was speaking on Friday at the end of the 4th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which began on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There were reports earlier this year that people in the country were going hungry, giving rise to concerns as winter approached about a full-blown food crisis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The border has been closed since January 2020 to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from China.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: National News Agency<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has said the faltering economy will be the national priority this year as the country faces a “great life-and-death struggle”.He was speaking at the end of a key ruling party meeting, which coincides with him being in p…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n