North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a speech at a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party announced a possible food shortage in the country.
This was reported by the Japanese television NHK.
“Due to the damage caused by last year’s typhoon, the grain growing plan has not been implemented and therefore there is a tense situation with the provision of food to the population,” the North Korean leader warned.
According to Kim Jong-un, quoted by South Korean television, the extension of quarantine measures imposed in the DPRK due to the coronavirus “has led to a continuation of the struggle to provide the population with clothing, food and housing.”
Kim Jong-un also called on the party and the people of North Korea to be ready for a new “difficult march”. This term in the history of the DPRK refers to the period of the 90s of the last XX century, when the country was experiencing a severe economic crisis, aggravated by mass starvation.
Earlier, South Korean media commented that Kim Jong-un has noticeably lost weight.
Just a month ago, the official publication of the Communist Party in North Korea for the first time acknowledged that vaccination against COVID-19 was not a panacea and that citizens should therefore prepare for long-term intensified anti-epidemic measures. In February, the country requested coronavirus vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO) -based Covax program. The DPRK has requested vaccines, although it has not officially provided any information.
Kim Jong Un has acknowledged that the food situation in North Korea is “tense”, state media reported, amid anxious recalls of the country’s devastating famine in the 1990s, which killed hundreds of thousands.
The poor country, which has come under numerous international sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, has long struggled to feed itself by suffering from chronic food shortages, AFP reported.
Last year, the coronavirus pandemic and a series of summer storms and floods added even more pressure to the suffocating economy.
At a plenary session of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim said the economy had improved this year, with industrial production up 25 percent from a year earlier, the official KCTA news agency reported.
But there have been a number of deviations due to a number of challenges, the North Korean leader added.
“The human food situation is now escalating as the agricultural sector failed to meet its grain production plan due to typhoon damage last year,” Kim said.
A series of typhoons last summer caused floods that destroyed thousands of homes and flooded farmland. Kim called for steps to minimize the impact of such natural disasters, saying ensuring a good harvest is a “top priority”.
The “long-term nature” of the coronavirus pandemic was also discussed at the meeting, KCTA reported. Pyongyang has a poor medical infrastructure and a chronic shortage of drugs, and analysts say a riot of coronavirus would wreak havoc in the isolated country.
North Korea imposed a strict lock when it sealed its border in January last year to stem the spread of the virus from neighboring China. Pyongyang has long claimed that there have been no cases of the virus – a statement that analysts doubt. But the country has paid a huge economic price for the blockade.
Trade with China, Pyongyang’s viable economy, has become a thin thread, while all international aid faces severe restrictions. The impact of the pandemic “is likely to have worsened” the humanitarian situation in the north, with about 10.6 million people in need, “said a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
