Politics

Premier Pak Thae Song, who is also member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, made a field survey of various sectors of the national economy.

At the Tokchon Coal Mine of the Tokchon Area Coal-mining Complex and the Hoean Youth Coal Mine of the Pukchang Area Youth Coal-mining Complex, he called upon officials and coal miners to bear in mind the policy requirement of giving definite precedence to prospecting and tunnelling and wage a dynamic high-speed tunnelling campaign so as to keep securing new coal fields and steadily consolidate the material and technical foundations of the coal mines while boosting the coal mining and transport capacity.

Looking round various production lines of the Pukchang Thermal Power Complex, he referred to the importance of increased electricity production in carrying out the new long-term plan and stressed the need to actively invent and introduce the optimization plans for further improving the performance of generating equipment and stably and continuously increasing power production.

At the Chollima Steel Complex, the premier called for steadily improving the iron production method to suit the specific conditions and, at the same time, further boosting the operating efficiency of equipment and strengthening cooperation between production processes and between shifts in order to fulfil the iron and steel production plan without fail.

Inspecting the Chongsan and other farms in Kangso District, he said that rational methods of manuring and cultivating crops should be widely applied to raise the yields of wheat and barley by regarding scientific farming as the lifeline and that farm operations should be effectively organized and directed to ensure that rice transplanting is finished in the right season in a qualitative way.

At the Pyongyang Mining Machine Factory he underlined the need to modernize the production lines to radically improve the quality of products. And he called on officials and producers to regularly listen to the opinions of coal miners and other users of equipment and to produce efficient mining equipment in larger quantities.

At the fifth-stage construction site in the Hwasong area, the premier acquainted himself in detail with the construction of major projects and underscored the need for officials and builders to strictly observe the requirements of the construction methods and carry out the construction as planned.

The field consultative meetings on the spot took measures after discussing the issue for the coal, electric-power and metallurgical industrial sectors to work out realistic scientific and technological plans for further increasing the production capacity, the issue for the agricultural sector to actively introduce advanced farming methods for producing high and stable yields despite unfavourable weather conditions, and the issue of providing in time the materials needed for the fifth-stage construction in the Hwasong area and the production of custom-built equipment.

Earlier, the premier learned about the fertilizer production and business management at the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex and took relevant measures.