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Paekma-Cholsan Waterway Completed

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Phihyon, October 2 (KCNA) -- A ceremony of commissioning the Paekma-Cholsan Waterway took place on Oct. 2. The more than 270 km-long waterway is a monumental edifice that appeared in the Songun era in accordance with the plan of leader Kim Jong Il for grand nature-remaking. It is a huge modern gravity-fed irrigation system for supplying tens of thousands of jongmi of water (one jongmi is approximately 10,000 cubic meters) from Lake Paekma to a vast area of cultivated land in six cities and counties including Ryongchon, Yomju and Cholsan counties and Sinuiju City of North Phyongan Province. The successful completion of the waterway helps perfect the irrigation system in the western area of the country on a higher stage. It also provides a sure guarantee for increasing the grain production without using hundreds of pumping machines. The builders and their helpers have successfully completed the waterway project in a matter of a little over two years.
    Attending the ceremony were Premier of the DPRK Cabinet Pak Pong Ju, Vice Marshal of the Korean People's Army Ri Yong Mu, vice-chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission, and other senior officials, members of the Cabinet, officials concerned, officials of institutions at various levels, builders and working people in North Phyongan Province.
    Pak Pong Ju conveyed a congratulatory message of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea to the builders and their helpers who have performed labor feats in the project.
    Pak Yong Sok, chairman of the Central Control Commission of the WPK, made a report on the commissioning.
    He said that the waterway is a grand monumental edifice which would convey down to posterity the undying leadership feats of Kim Jong Il who has brought about eye-opening changes in the country by wisely leading the gigantic nature-harnessing projects in the era of Songun. The building of the waterway of the above-said type is of weighty significance in achieving a new boost in the nation's agricultural production and laying a firm foundation for the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation.
    The reporter recalled that Kim Jong Il proposed a militant task of building the Paekma-Cholsan Waterway in the wake of the construction of the Kaechon-Lake Thaesong Waterway and has wisely steered the work for its completion. He went on to say:
    Thanks to the patriotic and devoted efforts of the builders there appeared the Dyke of Lake Paekma of eternal value and at least 1,400 structures including the earth waterway extending hundreds of ri, dozens of waterway tunnels and large ducts for irrigation water. As a result, a huge modern gravity-fed irrigation system of Korean type has been successfully built.
    Pointing out that Kim Jong Il set forth the task of building a waterway on the Miru Plain in North Hwanghae Province, the reporter called upon its builders to make thoroughgoing preparations for it on the basis of the achievements and experience gained in the Paekma-Cholsan waterway project and complete it in a short span of time in order to honor the task laid down by Kim Jong Il.
    At the end of the ceremony, the participants looked round Lake Paekma, the waterway stretching out across a vast land and structures.