In factory visits, Kim tries to grow NoKor economy
WONSAN (AP) — For North Korean factory managers, a visit by the nation’s leader Kim Jongun is the highest of honors and quite possibly the most stressful event imaginable.
Kwon Yong Chol, the chief engineer at the Songdowon General Foodstuffs Factory, had looked forward to the visit for nearly a decade. His factory churns out tons of cookies, crackers, candies and bakery goods, plus dozens of varieties of soft drinks sold around the country.
In its showroom, Kwon proudly showed off one of his bestsellers: a nutrient soup made with spirulina, a blue-green microalgae “superfood.”
“Ever since construction began, everyone here had wanted the leader to visit, and this year he did. His visit was the biggest thing that could happen to us,” Kwon, smiling broadly, said of Kim’s visit in July.
“He ate our instant noodles. He said they were delicious,” Kwon added.
Not all managers, though, have been so fortunate.
There is a lot on the line for North Korea these days. And Kim means business.
Though the international spotlight has been on his denuclearization talks with Washington, the North Korean leader has a lot riding domestically on his promises to boost the country’s economy and standard of living.
His announcement in April that North Korea had sufficiently developed its nuclear weapons and would now focus on building its economy marked a sharp turn in official policy, setting the stage for his rapid-fire meetings with the leaders of China, South Korea and the United States.
It also set in motion an ambitious campaign of “on-the-spot guidance” trips to rally party officials, factory managers and military troops.
After the announcement of the “new strategic line” and his first round of summits, including his meeting in June with US President Donald Trump, Kim embarked on nearly 20 inspection tours around the country in July and another 10 in August, all but one of them to non-military locations.
The military inspection rounds are instead being handled by the country’s premier, Pak Pongju, who has gone on 18 inspection tours from July, mostly to military facilities.
On-the-spot guidance tours are a tradition Kim inherited from his father and grandfather, the late “eternal General-Secretary” Kim Jong-il and “eternal President” Kim Il-sung.
They date to the late 1940s, when Kim Il-sung began gradually institutionalizing the visits to demonstrate his hands-on leadership and, as invariably portrayed by the North’s media, his deep care and concern for the well-being of the people.