North Korean leader Kim Jong Un acknowledged last week that his country's economy was in "terrible situation" as he touted a new development scheme to stimulate the isolated regime.
Kim described the scarcity of basic necessities, including food, as a "serious political issue." The 40-year-old supreme leader also blamed party cadres who he said were too passive.
North Korea has faced critical food shortages in recent years, with around 45 percent of the country believed to be undernourished from 2020-2022, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's latest food scarcity report.
Also in 2022, outside observers were increasingly concerned about the country's first reported outbreak of COVID-19. North Korea, which lacked sufficient testing kits for tracing, reported only a few dozen deaths from the virus, but experts believe the pandemic dealt a heavy blow to its poverty-stricken economy and workforce.
"Today, failure to satisfactorily provide the people in local areas with basic living necessities including condiments, foodstuff and consumption goods has arisen as a serious political issue that our party and government can never sidestep," Kim said during a Workers' Party conference held January 23-24.
He pointed out the "overall regional economy is in a terrible situation without elementary conditions and there are severe imbalance and huge gaps between regions in terms of their geographical circumstances, economic potential and living circumstances," the official Korean Central News Agency reported a day later.
Kim called for practical solutions to be brought forward to boost the "basic material and cultural life of regional people" in North Korea in a short amount of time.
Kim, who is known to have a strong appetite for luxury goods, blamed economic planners who he said were only "paying lip service" to improving the country's standard of living, instead of facing challenges head-on with "revolutionary determination and courage."
He touted his recently adopted "20x10" development plan, which involves lowering regional resource disparities and building industrial centers in 200 cities and countries in the next 10 years.
In addition to the inflexibility of its centrally planned economy, North Korea is vulnerable to food insecurity due to its short growing season, often harsh climate, and lack of access to many modern agricultural technologies.
In the 1990s, the country experienced a severe famine estimated to have killed as much as 5 percent of its population.
In recent months, Kim has voiced frustration over symptoms of his country's impoverished society, including early last month when he appeared to break down in tears while imploring North Korean women to have more children amid a plummeting birth rate.
The U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization and the North Korean embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to Newsweek's requests for comment.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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