North Korea Prioritizes 'Land and Environmental Management' as Top Economic Policy Task Amid Flood Damage

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo In-ho] North Korea, having suffered from floods consecutively last year and this year, has made national land and environmental management the top priority in executing economic policies.

The Workers' Party organ Rodong Sinmun emphasized on the 6th in an article titled "The Most Priority Central Task in Executing the Party's Economic Policy" that "The national land management project is an effort to invest ten to protect a hundred and gain a thousand," and stressed, "For our country to achieve rapid and sustainable development, thorough countermeasures must be devised to overcome natural disasters."

The newspaper urged, "It is a grand natural transformation project requiring massive human and material resources, to be promoted independently by all cities and counties, with responsible officials in each city and county fully accountable for the national land management projects in their regions."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

North Korea's focus on national land and environmental management projects is due to the enormous damage caused by floods in recent years.

In 2019, Typhoon Lingling struck Hwanghae Province, the largest rice-producing area, flooding and burying approximately 46,200 jeongbo (about 458 km²) of farmland. Last year, continuous rains in August and successive typhoons in September caused over 730 houses to be submerged in North Hwanghae Province and more than 1,000 houses to collapse in Hamgyong Province.

This year, heavy rains in South Hamgyong Province caused embankments to collapse, forcing 5,000 residents to evacuate urgently, with about 1,170 houses flooded or destroyed.

Accordingly, North Korea recently acknowledged a food shortage unusually, following last year's flood damage.

Kim Jong-un, General Secretary of the Workers' Party, held a plenary meeting of the Party in June and stated, "Due to last year's typhoon damage, the grain production plan was not met, and currently, the people's food situation is becoming tense."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.