＜Inside N. Korea＞ Efforts to implement the“20x10 policy for regional development” begin…As people are mobilized to construction projects, complaints start to emerge

◆ Factories are not operating, so why build new ones?

--The 20x10 policy aims to bridge the gap between cities and rural areas, but will it work?

The "20×10 policy" claims to bring about dramatic change in people's lives, but there are already many complaints. It's not that there are no factories, but the factories that do exist have no raw materials and the machinery is outdated and not working properly. Many people are wondering what will change by building a new factory. The government emphasizes that the materials and equipment needed to build the factory should be domestically produced, but there are many things that are impossible to procure (without imports), so people are wondering what will happen.

-- Isn't Orang County, which has an active fishing industry, doing well?

The seafood processing plant in Orang County is touting that it will sell the products to the people. The question is, who will pay to buy and eat it? People can't sell things in the market, so they can't make money, and they have to buy food first with their own wages (even if they go to work). Even if the factory produced a lot of fish, not many people would be able to buy it because they don't have money.

◆ Yanggang halts construction of park to focus on construction of new factory

In Yanggang Province, a new factory will be built in Kimhyongjik County, several reporting partners in the province told ASIAPRESS in mid-February. The county, named after Kim Jong-un's great-grandfather, is located at an altitude of 1,000 meters above sea level, and its main industry is forestry. A reporting partner in the province had this to say about the country’s construction project:

"There are many questions about why the factory is being built in a remote area with inconvenient transportation. Mobilization for the factory construction has already begun, and the workers who were used to build houses in Bochon County and parks in Hyesan have been withdrawn and sent to Kimhyongjik County. All other construction in the province has been halted."

◆ Why encourage people to engage in construction projects for a year?

The reporting partner further questioned the building a new factory in the province, not just because it is so remote:

"They say it's to improve people's lives, but I don't understand why they want to build another factory when the one they have now doesn't have the raw materials or electricity to run properly. They say they want to invest in facilities and revitalize them, but where is the money? I heard that the officials are facing a difficult situation.”

Bridging the urban-rural divide isn't a bad thing on the surface. But the question is how effective these gap-smashing efforts will be. Why, then, is Kim Jong Un moving forward with the project in such a big way?

"I think 2024 will be a whole year of mobilization under the pretext of rural construction and propaganda to support construction. (The government) once said, 'We will become a strong country,' and another time said, 'We can see the victory of socialism,' but nothing has come to fruition. I think this time, they're trying to incite and drag people around by giving them tasks to do this and that, and there are many people who complain about that."

※ ASIAPRESS communicates with reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.