The cabinet report acknowledged that “serious mistakes” were found in its work last year.
“They taught a serious lesson that if the officials in charge of providing economic guidance fail to fulfil their duty,” the authorities’ economic goals will not be achieved, it said.
North Korea “apparently wants to show its institutions are working and national safety is under control, while trying to lower public expectations about the economy by blaming the ongoing global pandemic,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un replaces almost half of top governing body in reshuffle
- Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since first inheriting power in 2011, aged in his 20s
- The reshuffle came as a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament was held on Sunday, with hundreds of lawmakers pictured not wearing masks
has carried out a major reshuffle of his State Affairs Commission, official media reported on Monday, replacing more than one-third of its members.
Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since inheriting power in 2011.
He is chairman of the SAC – the North’s highest decision-making body – and five of its 13 other members were replaced at a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly parliament on Sunday, the state-run KCNA news agency reported.
“This is a rather large scale of SAC membership shuffle,” said former US government North Korea analyst Rachel Lee.
Pictures carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed hundreds of lawmakers sitting close to each other without wearing protective masks.
“State emergency anti-epidemic campaign will continue to be intensified to prevent the spread of Covid-19,” the cabinet report said.
There was no mention on KCNA of Kim presiding over the meeting himself, and he did not appear in photos of it.
The new SAC members include Ri Son-gwon, a former senior army officer named as foreign minister earlier this year, while his predecessor, career diplomat Ri Yong-ho, was removed.
Another former foreign minister, Ri Su-yong, was also taken off the committee.
Under Kim the North has made rapid progress on its nuclear arsenal, launching missiles capable of reaching the whole of the US mainland, and has been subject to increasingly stringent UN Security Council sanctions as a result.
over sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in exchange.
A budgetary report submitted to the SPA said 15.9 per cent of state spending this year would be devoted to defence, KCNA said, a marginal increase on 2019.
The cabinet report acknowledged that “serious mistakes” were found in its work last year.
“They taught a serious lesson that if the officials in charge of providing economic guidance fail to fulfil their duty,” the authorities’ economic goals will not be achieved, it said.
North Korea “apparently wants to show its institutions are working and national safety is under control, while trying to lower public expectations about the economy by blaming the ongoing global pandemic,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
