NK leader oversees politburo meeting to launch 80-day campaign for economic development

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party and launched an "80-day campaign" to make a last-ditch push to achieve the country's economic and other objectives by year-end, state media reported Tuesday.

In August, Kim acknowledged that his five-year economic development plan failed to achieve intended goals in the face of unexpected internal and external challenges, and pledged to unveil a new scheme at the party congress in January.

"The meeting discussed, as its first agenda item, the issue of successfully greeting the Eighth Congress of the Party by waging a dynamic 80-Day Campaign of the entire Party, the whole country and all the people," the Korean Central News Agency said.

The decision was made to "glorify the 75th founding anniversary of the Party" on Saturday as a great festival of victory and progress, "proudly conclude this year's struggle in elated spirit and greet the Eighth Congress of the Party with high political enthusiasm and labor feats," it added.

The KCNA also said that during the meeting Monday, it was stressed that the remaining time until the January party congress is "the period of year-end struggle" and the "last phase of carrying out the five-year strategy for national economic development" so the whole country should wage "another all-out campaign."

The economic development plan was adopted when the North held a previous party congress in May 2016. The North was supposed to complete major goals of the plan ahead of this week's party founding anniversary, but it appears to be impossible amid international sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and other woes.

During the meeting, the title of the marshal of the Korean People's Army (KPA) was granted to Ri Pyong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party, and Pak Jong-chon, chief of the General Staff of the KPA, according to the KCNA. (Yonhap)