North Korea holds open party meeting to force light industry results from local officials

North Pyongan province’s party committee has summoned local commercial and light industry officials to a two-night, three-day open party general meeting in Sinuiju, pressing them to deliver tangible results on light industry targets set at the ninth Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) congress.

A Daily NK source in North Pyongan province said Thursday that the provincial party committee called together all department chiefs and above from county and city people’s committee commercial departments and local industry management bureaus across the province at the start of this month, gathering them in Sinuiju for intensive study sessions and what were described as “no-holds-barred debate-style” open party general meetings.

The open party general meeting is a format that allows outside participants to attend what are otherwise internal party sessions. This gathering was held under the theme of thoroughly implementing the light industry plan set out at the ninth WPK congress to further improve the material and cultural lives of the North Korean people, and the tasks of officials responsible for carrying it out.

Rather than simply having local administrative officials memorize party policy, the provincial party committee paired instruction with discussions aimed at producing concrete results in light industry development, according to the source.

Officials were not permitted to passively take notes. Instead, they were required to debate how to overcome the backwardness in their own areas and to submit to direct criticism from their peers.

The provincial party committee also directed commercial department chiefs to personally design distribution channels for goods entering the country since the border reopening, as well as for domestically produced light industry products, and to submit those designs in written reports.

Central push targets Sinuiju’s commercial networks

Above all, the source said, the open party general meeting reflected the central party’s intent to use the ninth WPK congress as a turning point to tighten the discipline of local administrative officials and to make visible progress on modernizing commercial distribution networks and revitalizing light industry production, particularly in Sinuiju as a border city, within the first quarter.

“The officials summoned to this open party general meeting were the key figures responsible for commerce and light industry in every city and county in the province,” the source said. “Over two nights and three days, they had to come up with specific implementation plans for carrying out congress directives while living together in one place.”

At the meeting, officials were pressured through seven specific implementation directives handed down from the center. The first called for a comprehensive review of the operational state of commercial networks. The second required the establishment of measures to secure raw materials for local industry factories. The third demanded qualitative improvements to daily necessities preferred by the North Korean people. The fourth called for strengthening the vanguard role of commercial sector officials. The fifth stipulated that failing to meet first-quarter targets would result in strict accountability. The sixth required the unconditional elimination of corruption in the distribution process. The seventh ordered that all of these implementation measures be spread throughout the province.

Officials who attended the open party general meeting maintained a somber atmosphere throughout and continued their discussions under extreme tension over the consequences of failing to meet the party’s demands, according to the source.

“They went two nights and three days barely sleeping, wracking their brains over how to carry out congress directives,” the source said, “and many expressed despair, saying they had no idea how they were supposed to revive the commercial networks when there were no raw materials and no money.”

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