N. Korea to hold Supreme People's Assembly session next month: state media

North Korea will convene a meeting of its rubber-stamp legislature in Pyongyang next month to discuss adopting laws on youth education and modifications to the national economic plan, state media said Thursday.

The standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly met in Pyongyang on Tuesday and decided to convene an SPA session on Sept. 28, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The KCNA said the session will discuss the issue of "adopting the law on developing cities and counties and the law on ensuring education of young people, the issue of modification and supplementation of the law on national economic plan, the issue of inspecting and supervising the enforcement of the law on recycling and the organizational issue."

The session comes as the North has recently stressed the importance of ideological education for the youth and rooting out non-socialist practices amid growing economic pressure from the fallout of global sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

At a rare party congress in January, leader Kim Jong-un admitted to a failure in his previous economic development plan and disclosed a new development scheme focusing on self-reliance.

Earlier this year, he compared the current economic woes to the 1990s, when the North suffered from extreme poverty and starvation, and urged his country to prepare for a tougher battle.

The organizational issue to be discussed at the session also draws keen attention as the North has recently seen a reshuffle of its top party officials, including Ri Pyong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party who is believed to have been dismissed from the Presidium.

During this week's plenary meeting of the standing committee, the North decided on the modification and supplementation of laws on road traffic and forests.

The law on road traffic has been supplemented with more "subdivided and detailed contents for ensuring security and promptness in road traffic."

The North also decided to supplement its law on forest for a unified management "conducive to the development of the national economy and the promotion of the people's wellbeing."

Choe Ryong-hae, president of the presidium of the SPA, presided over the meeting while other officials attended the meeting, including Pak Yong-il, vice-chairman of the SPA Standing Committee.

The SPA is the highest organ of power under the constitution, but it rubber-stamps decisions by the ruling party. It usually holds a plenary session in March or April to deal mainly with budget and cabinet reshuffles.

The North has held two sessions in a single year exceptionally in 2012, 2014 and 2019. The SPA session next month will mark the second of its kind this year as the last session was held in January. (Yonhap)