(Reuters-Yonhap)
North Korea urged economic guidance organs to take full responsibility in implementing economic development plans as it held a Cabinet meeting to review the country's first-quarter production results, state media said Monday.
The enlarged session of the plenary meeting of the Cabinet took place via video links Sunday, with Premier Kim Tok-hun presiding over the meeting and Vice Premier Pak Jong-gun making a report on the economic performance in the first quarter, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
"The report cited facts to analyze and review the shortcomings and deviations observed in implementing the plan for the first quarter of the first year of the new five-year plan, and stressed the need for economic guidance organs to wage powerful struggle against the acts of avoiding responsibilities and approaching the implementation of the plan in a formalistic way," the KCNA said.
"The report emphasized that the officials should significantly raise their responsibility and role and consistently push forward the work for bringing about a substantial change and advance in the overall economic work for this year," it added.
The KCNA did not provide details on its first-quarter economic performance.
North Korea has emphasized the role of economic guidance organs in achieving the first-year objectives of the country's first-year economic development scheme unveiled earlier this year. The Cabinet has been cited as the "economic headquarters of the country."
Participants of Sunday's session vowed to do their best to ensure "maximum production" and guarantee "evident progress" in carrying out their second-quarter economic development plans, the KCNA said.
They also discussed matters related to "activating the production of consumer goods" and "increasing the role of science and technology in railway modernization and in the economy as a whole," it added. (Yonhap)