Workers’ Party of Korea’s New Regional Development 20×10 Policy

The more rapidly society develops, the greater the differences are between the capital and regions, between towns and rural communities. This is common in any country in the world.

This is the same case with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

However, the Workers’ Party of Korea could never ignore such phenomena that run counter to the ideals of comprehensive development of socialist construction. The Party, regarding it as a principle in its activities to pay constant and equal attention to the living of all the people throughout the country and actively solve the problems arising in their living, has set removing the centuries-old backwardness as a historic task it should bravely shoulder however challenging it is.

Proceeding from this, the Eighth Central Committee of the Party set strengthening cities and counties and improving the rural living environment as an important line for the development of the state, and tried to find a way of opening a new era of comprehensive development, in which the capital and regions would develop together.

At the Fourth Plenary Meeting of its Eighth Central Committee held in December 2021, it set forth the programme for the rural revolution in the new era for rural rejuvenation, and in January 2024 advanced the Regional Development 20×10 Policy that focuses on comprehensive modernization of regional-industry factories.

Anyone, who is born on this land, should lead an abundant and civilized life under the socialist policy of the state, whether they live in the capital or regions, in towns or mountainous villages and this should be realized without fail–this is the core of the new policy of regional development.

The following is a detailed introduction of the Regional Development 20×10 Policy.

Essence of the Regional Development 20×10 Policy

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said that however gigantic and daunting the struggle tasks facing us were and however numerous the problems we had to solve were, nothing was more important and pressing than to defend and take care of the destiny and livelihood of the people.”

At the policy speech he made at the Tenth Session of the 14^th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of the DPRK on January 15, 2024, Kim Jong Un unfolded a grand plan for developing onto a higher stage the material and cultural living standards of regional people across the country at the earliest date possible, and defined it the Regional Development 20×10 Policy.

This policy requires that modernizing the regional-industry factories in 20 counties every year on the level of the factories in Kimhwa County should be taken as a mandatory policy-oriented task and implemented step by step so as to renovate all the regional-industry factories in cities and counties across the country within ten years and bring about a leap forward in the basic material and cultural living standards of the people in all parts of the country.

He noted that it was imperative to carry out successfully the construction of modern regional-industry factories on such a level as those in Kimhwa County.

His call for construction of regional-industry factories like those in Kimhwa County does not mean that their sizes should be set in a uniform way. It means they should be built in such a way that the level of their modernization and civilized working and living conditions reaches the level of those in the county and the level of modernization of equipment needed for the regional-industry factories to be newly built should be higher than that of those in the county.

In view of this, the essence of this policy is to wipe out the centuries-old backwardness of regions and realize the desire of the regional people through the powerful promotion of the regional-industry revolution, thus promoting the wellbeing of all the people across the country and protecting their rights and interests.