Kim Jong Un Refers to Proud Successes Achieved Last Year

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

Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) -- Supreme leader Kim Jong Un in his New Year Address said that last year was a proud year in which the entire Party, the whole army and all the people waged an all-out offensive in support of the Party's new line of developing the two fronts simultaneously and thus achieved brilliant successes in building a thriving socialist country and defending socialism.

He went on:

Last year our service personnel and people, firmly rallied behind the Party, exalted the brilliance of the ideas and cause of the President and the General and strengthened the political and ideological might of our revolutionary ranks all the more.

Through the political events held in celebration of the 65th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK and the 60th anniversary of victory in the Fatherland Liberation War and in the whole course of last year's struggle, they demonstrated their firm faith and will in holding the President and the General in high esteem and carrying forward their imperishable exploits to posterity.

Our Party's policies of respecting the people and loving them and the people's hearty loyalty of trusting and following the Party as they would do their mothers have become integrated, and thus the blood-sealed ties between them have reached a new, higher stage.

As our Party detected and purged the anti-Party, counterrevolutionary factionalists, the Party and revolutionary ranks were further consolidated and our single-hearted unity was solidified to the maximum.

We consolidated our capabilities for self-defence and achieved a brilliant victory in the acute showdown with the imperialists.

Though the circumstances were harsh and complicated, our service personnel and people, by pooling their efforts, achieved great successes in the struggle to build their country into an economic giant and improve the people's standard of living.

An upsurge was brought about in production in several sectors and units of the national economy, and the foundations of the self-supporting economy were further consolidated. The officials and working people in the agricultural sector in particular made innovations in production even under difficult conditions and unfavourable natural climate and thus contributed to improving the people's standard of living.

The service personnel and other builders set up numerous monumental structures for the prosperity of their country and well-being of their fellow people and ushered in a heyday of construction.

A strong wind of conducting sports swept the country, and our sportspeople won gold medals in international competitions and thus highly exalted the honour of their motherland.

Preparations for enforcing a universal 12-year compulsory education were successfully promoted, many achievements made in the sector of science and technology, and up-to-date medical facilities introduced for the improvement of medical services for the people. The sector of musical art created many famous works of our times, inspiring loyalty in all the service personnel and people and encouraging them to wage a dynamic struggle and perform great feats.

He stressed that the shining victories and successes the DPRK achieved last year can be ascribed to the fact that the entire Party, the whole army and all the people, in support of the revolutionary and people-oriented lines and policies of the Party and its wise leadership, waged a heroic struggle with an indomitable faith and will to build a thriving socialist country without fail. -0-