North Korea opens rare party congress with leader Kim touting economic achievements

North Korea launched the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, its largest political event in five years. Leader Kim Jong-un highlighted economic progress, set five-year policy goals, and formed a 39-member presidium

Seoul: North Korea has kicked off a rare party congress, state media said Friday, as leader Kim Jong-un touted economic achievements at the country’s biggest political event in five years that would set major policy directions on defence and the economy.

“The Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) opened with splendor in Pyongyang, the capital city of the revolution,” the previous day, Yonhap news agency reported quoting Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

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Typically running several days, the congress sets state policy goals for the next five years on the economy, defence and diplomacy, and makes major personnel decisions. This year’s congress, the highest decision-making body in North Korea and the first since 2021, will be widely watched for any signs regarding the country’s nuclear weapons program or dialogue overtures from Seoul and Washington.

Declaring the opening of the congress, the North’s leader touted that the national economy had overcome difficulties and laid the foundation for progress since the previous party congress in 2021.

“In view of the external relations, too, the position of our state was firmly consolidated as an irreversible one, bringing about a great change in the global political landscape and in the influence on our state,” Kim was quoted as saying, in a possible allusion to the country’s pursuit of status as a nuclear-armed state.

“This created favorable conditions and circumstances for giving a greater spur to our socialist construction,” the KCNA also quoted him as saying. “We should … review shortcomings from a critical and developmental point of view, work out the struggle plan for the next stage in an elaborate and scientific way and strengthen the leadership forces capable of leading the implementation of the plan,” Kim noted.

Any mention of relations with the United States or South Korea was omitted in his speech, with Kim focusing on spurring economic development.

“Today, our Party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people’s standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible,” he said.

Kim noted that the party’s central committee had established a congress preparation body to review and analyse the outcomes from the projects set at the previous 2021 congress in an effort to better set new goals. The latest congress brought together about 5,000 party representatives from across the country, including more than 200 officials from the party headquarters and more than 4,700 from regional and industrial organs.

Released photos showed streets in Pyongyang lined with red party flags bearing the yellow hammer, sickle and calligraphy brush emblem, along with propaganda images, as the party drummed up celebratory festivities marking the party event. North Korea also formed a 39-member presidium of the congress, including Kim, Premier Pak Thae-song, party secretary Jo Yong-won and Kim Yo-jong, a vice party department chief and the powerful sister of the leader.

Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and Kim Song-nam, chief of the party’s international affairs department, were among the 23 officials who were newly elected to the presidium. There was no mention or image of Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, despite the South Korean spy agency’s assessment that the teenager may be groomed to be Kim’s successor. Whether Ju-ae will receive a formal title at the party event remains a major focus of attention.