A new era of regional development is being ushered in across the DPRK.

In January 2024 the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un set forth the Regional Development 20×10 Policy at the Tenth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK and took measures to implement it.

Accordingly, a grand groundbreaking ceremony of regional-industry factories in Songchon County was held the following month to signal the start of the regional-industry revolution.

Anyone who is born on this land should lead an abundant and civilized life under the socialist policy of the state, whether they live in the capital city or regions, in towns or mountain villages. With this in mind, Comrade Kim Jong Un attended the groundbreaking ceremony to dug the first spadeful of earth and press the button for blasting, thus declaring the start of the historic regional-industry revolution.

Despite the sweltering midsummer heat of July, he visited the area of Phungo-dong, Sinpho City, an eastern coastal city, to open the bright prospects of offshore farming in the new century designed to ensure that coastal cities and counties seek progress of their own characteristics by making the best use of marine resources as suited to the natural and geographical conditions of the country with a long coastline.

Presiding over a consultative meeting for the work of regional development on August 31, he said that the policy for regional development in the new era should not be confined to the construction of light-industry factories but should be a comprehensive policy dealing with public health, science and education, adding that only then can it make a genuine contribution to the improvement of the regional people’s material and cultural life and radically improve the efficiency of regional development. And he clarified all the principles to be adhered to in building advanced city and county hospitals, sci-tech dissemination bases and grain storage facilities.

Therefore, regional-industry factories were inaugurated in Songchon County in December 2024 and regions accounting to one fifth of the country came to lay solid foundations for their self-reliant development in 2025.

Offshore farms, advanced healthcare facilities and leisure complexes sprang up in different cities and counties.

Comrade Kim Jong Un told the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in February this year: It is important to build regional-industry factories, hospitals and leisure complexes in 20 cities and counties every year without fail, starting from this year, and invariably maintain our mode of struggle and advance speed leading groundbreaking at the outset of the year to inauguration at the end of the year through a more dynamic struggle for implementing the regional development policy.

This year, too, the projects for regional-industry factories, healthcare facilities and leisure complexes are proceeding apace in 20 cities and counties like Unnyul County.

Kim Hyon