Pak Pong-ju on field survey during Kim Jong-un's absence
This video footage released by North Korea's state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) on Jan. 11 shows North Korea's Premier of the Cabinet Pak Pong-ju, whispering to the country's leader Kim Jong-un during a welcoming ceremony for Kim, who made his sixth trip to China to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. KCTV-Yonhap
By Jung Da-min
North Korea's Premier of the Cabinet Pak Pong-ju made a field survey of a pump factory and insulation factory in Anju, a city in South Pyongan Province, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Tuesday. Pak is also a member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission.
While the country's leader Kim Jong-un is on his longest trip abroad for the second North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi and an official goodwill visit to Vietnam, three top officials including Kim Yong-nam, Choe Ryong-hae and Pak Pong-ju, members of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK, remained in the North to look after domestic affairs.
According to the KCNA report, Pak also visited the Mirae Science and Technology Center and the Education and Science Exhibition Hall of Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang and the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex in Anju and met students and young workers.
The ruling party organ Rodong Sinmun on Wednesday also carried Pak's field survey to Anju, saying the workers and engineers in the factories are making all-out efforts to realize modernization of the production process, in an effort to carry out the country's five-year strategy for economic development running till 2020.
North Korean media have been reporting Pak's field surveys to various factories and production sites around the country, implying that Pak has the full confidence of Kim Jong-un for conducting the country's economic strategies.
Pak, 79, is a veteran economic strategist who won confidence from late leader Kim Jong-il and the current leader Kim Jong-un for his innovative economic strategies that expanded autonomy of factories and workers for higher productivity.
Unlike other high-profile officials from “good” parentage, he is from a normal family without linkage to Kim Il-sung's family. He graduated from Tokchon University of Technology in South Pyongan Province, not one of the top universities in the North like Kim Il Sung University or Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, North Korea's economic issues are expected to be discussed during the second North Korea-U.S. summit between Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, Trump
that North Korea has a great potential to become an economic power and the potential could be realized through the country's decision to denuclearize.
“Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize,” read the tweet. “The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong-un. We will know fairly soon - Very Interesting!”