economy

Towards new civilization, new development

The Wihwa Island area has undergone a great transformation.

The area was notorious for sandy dust blown by the river wind, which is so strong to make it difficult to open eyes, and for the flood, which hits the island every year, from time immemorial. Now it has been turned into a treasure island covered with modern vegetable greenhouses, an ideal farm town envied by everyone, in a matter of one year.

Unprecedentedly large greenhouse group

The Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm and the Sinuiju Vegetable Science Research Centre were wonderfully built in the Wihwa island area covering Wihwa, Taji and Ranja islands.

Well over 1 000 greenhouses covering an area of 450 hectares are larger in scale than the recently built greenhouses in Jungphyong and Ryonpho on the east coast and in Kangdong of Pyongyang put together.

And the greenhouses vary in type according to crops and economic profits, including semi-arched double-sheet hydroponic greenhouse, arch-style inter-connected vinyl soil greenhouse, double-slope inter-connected glass hydroponic and soil greenhouse, and domed glass hydroponic greenhouse.

The double-slope inter-connected glass hydroponic greenhouse is a new-generation one based on an evaporative air cooling system to ensure suitable temperature in greenhouse even in summer while consuming less energy, and it is said to be the one close to industrialization of vegetable production.

The three domed glass hydroponic greenhouses built to look like a huge gem on Ranja Island comprehensively show the latest level of development of vegetable greenhouse as they are furnished with vertical rotary multi-layer vegetable cultivation arrangements, vertical flow multi-layer cultivation arrangements and horizontal plate multi-layer cultivation arrangements using LEDs.

And solar-heated greenhouses, where vegetable cultivation can be combined with fish farming and mushroom cultivation, highlight the characteristics of the vegetable greenhouse area.

The Wihwa Island area has a geothermal heating system, a nutrient solution supply ground and fertilizer factory, a carbon acid gas production ground and so on for the operation of vegetable greenhouses. And the combined greenhouse farm is based on an intelligent integrated production system, thus putting production organization on an IT and scientific basis and optimizing cultivation technology management.

The Sinuiju Vegetable Science Research Centre, based on a vegetable sci-tech research and dissemination support system, will play the role as a scientific guidance unit and scientific research centre, which provides technical service for greenhouse vegetable cultivation across the country while conducting vegetable science research.

New civilization, new development

The establishment of the large greenhouse group in the Wihwa Island area has changed people, their life and development in the locality. The islanders did farming hard on fields generation after generation but now they produce vegetables by pressing control buttons in modern greenhouses, wearing neat work clothes.

Whenever they talk about their dwelling houses, the locals can hardly suppress their excitement and gratitude.

Modern dwelling houses were their impossible dream as they lived on, repairing their houses every year due to flood. But now they have become the owners of new modern houses without paying a penny thanks to the country’s benefits after the picturesque houses were built in rows following the construction of the firm bulwark along the edges of the islands.

The whole island area resounds with happy laughter and singing day and night as it has been spruced up with the paved roads stretching here and there so that they can walk without having to step on earth, the landscape as beautiful as a picture and the wonderful cultural and welfare facilities.

An official of the North Phyongan Provincial Rural Economy Committee said with deep emotion that the island area known as a vegetable production area from olden times has become able to produce incomparably more vegetables than before with the large greenhouse group built there and that the area shows the new development of vegetable production.

Unbelievable miracles

The change in the Wihwa Island area is unimaginable in common sense.

No one now believes that the area was the one submerged by the unprecedented flood in July 2024.

It is General Secretary Kim Jong Un who brought about the change even the locals, once the sufferers of the flood damage, still regard as a dream.

In that month, the General Secretary visited the dangerous disaster-hit area to personally guide the operations for the rescue of the flood victims and unveil a grand plan to build dwelling houses and a modern large-scale greenhouse farm there for the well-being of the locals.

At the impressive inauguration ceremony of modern dwelling houses built there in a little over four months, he declared a new construction plan for the change of the region and led its implementation.

In February 2025, he attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm and the vegetable science research centre to dig the first spadeful of earth to signal the start of the construction. In the latter half of the year alone he visited the construction site four times to repeatedly give matchless courage to the soldier-builders and young builders and show great love for them and wisely led the construction.

He gave guidance over 170-odd plans for the construction, including the master plan and bird’s-eye view, and over 3 850-odd technical blueprints.

He also took many measures and gave instructions on many problems and issues, including those arising in the construction of a railway station and vegetable storehouse and those of planting many cover plants and fruit trees in the areas around the greenhouses, creating windbreak forests and natural park, creating drainage and water passage capacity, making preparations in a responsible manner for starting production immediately after the completion of the project and putting the management of the farm on an IT and automated basis, and the ways to prepare for the operation of the farm and manage it.

On February 1 2026, the day of the grand inauguration when the disaster-stricken island area turned into an ideal farm town, a new model of regional development, the General Secretary said in his speech at the inauguration ceremony that he was very happy and pleased that the area, where the local residents had suffered from flooding generation after generation, regarding it as their fate, became a base for their new life, which they will work cheerfully to build up, as it came to be protected by a solid dam that would resist even the heaviest flooding on record and wished all the residents a happy life.