Kim Says North Korea’s Food Situation Is ‘Getting Tense’

  • Food shortages made worse by typhoons last year and pandemic
  • Fitch Solutions says its economy will barely grow in 2021
Kim Jong Un during a Workers’ Party meeting in Pyongyang on June 15.Photographer: Korean Central News Agency/AP Photos
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country’s food situation is “getting tense” due to typhoons last year that wiped out crops, comments that underscored farm-sector shortfalls made worse by his decision to close borders to prevent Covid.

Kim told a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of his ruling Workers’ Party of Korea “the agricultural sector failed to fulfill its grain production plan,” and now is “high time to give full play to the indomitable revolutionary spirit and the fighting traits of self-reliance and fortitude,” the state’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.