North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un today (Wednesday) opened the Eighth Congress of the North Korean Workers’ Party with a rare admission of the failure of the economic plan he himself initiated.
Kim made the remarks to 5,000 senior members of the ruling party at a rally considered to be North Korea’s biggest political event, and the sad opening chosen by the ruler testifies to the plight of the beleagured dictatorship.
Kim Jong Un: “Our economic plan has failed” // Photo: Reuters
“Our five-year economic plan has completely failed in most areas. Our country is currently battling an unprecedentedly severe crisis,” Kim admitted in his opening remarks. This is an extraordinary responsibility on the part of a member of the Kim dynasty, who has ruled the country since the 1950s.
“We must advance the achievements and victories we have achieved in the past even to areas where we have failed and we must learn from our mistakes, so that we do not repeat them,” Kim added, referring to North Korea’s desperate economic situation.
The East Asian country has suffered an unprecedented economic disaster in the past year as China, Pyongyang’s main trading partner, has begun closing its borders to the passage of goods and people from North Korea. As a result, trade between the countries shrank by eighty percent and North Korea’s gross domestic product per capita fell by more than nine percent.
In addition to declining trade with China, a series of severe natural disasters, including floods and mudslides, have caused widespread destruction in a country where a large portion of the population is in constant danger of starvation. The old typhoon, which hit the country in September, has caused enormous damage to the country’s agricultural sector and now experts fear mass starvation and serious illness that will follow.
This is not the first time that Kim has surprised the citizens of his country and the world by taking responsibility and apologizing for the crisis plaguing his country. In October, the ruler expressed his sorrow over his country’s situation in a tearful speech, and apologized to the people of his country for the failures of the government.