Laying Ever-lasting Foundations for Building a Prosperous Country

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, since its founding on September 9, Juche 37 (1948), has dynamically advanced towards building a thriving nation for the past 75 years, undaunted by the ceaseless challenges and extreme sanctions of the hostile forces. The credit for such an amazing reality must go to the immortal exploits of Chairman Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), who had laid ever-lasting foundations for building a prosperous country.

Kim Jong Il provided a reliable military guarantee for building a prosperous country.

In the closing years of the previous century, when the allied imperialist forces were concentrating their anti-socialist offensive to stifle the DPRK, Kim Jong Il put forward the military affairs as the most important of the state affairs, and continued his ceaseless inspection tours of his leadership over the army under the uplifted banner of Songun. In the course of this, he once got aboard a small speedboat on the rough sea to see the soldiers defending an island post, and at another time pushed his car with his shoulders through a steep mountain path to see his soldiers on the front line. The number of the units in the field of the armed forces he visited from 1995 to 2011, the last year of his life, totals more than 2 490.

Under his leadership, the Korean People’s Army was prepared as an army strong in ideas and faith and the invincible army equipped with powerful self-defensive nuclear deterrent, and the country has been recognized throughout the world as a military power which no enemy can dare attack. This served as a reliable guarantee for a peaceful environment indispensable to the building of a prosperous country.

He brought about world-startling changes in all sectors, including the economy.

From the mid-1990s the DPRK faced severe economic difficulties. In order to overcome the harsh trials, Kim Jong Il put forward a line of economic construction–developing the defence industry on a priority basis while boosting light industry and agriculture simultaneously–and opened up a shortcut to rapidly developing the country’s economy, including putting the machine-building industry on a modern footing. To this end, he had been on an endless journey of on-site guidance at factories, rural villages and all other parts of the country, devoting his painstaking efforts.

His energetic leadership brought about an amazing reality. The steel industry has established a new steel production system, the fibre and fertilizer industries based on domestic raw and other materials and fuel resources have further developed, and the modernization of light industry has been promoted vigorously to produce a large number of quality consumer goods. The land under cultivation in the country has been realigned into large-sized, standardized fields, and gravitational waterways have been built one after another, thus laying a solid foundation for increasing the production of cereals. The DPRK succeeded in launching artificial earth satellite by its own efforts on two occasions, in 1998 and 2009, with the result that it has entered the ranks of a few satellite manufacturers and launchers in the world.

Kim Jong Il consolidated the single-hearted unity of the whole society in every possible way.

He put forward the KPA as the pillar for accomplishing the socialist cause, and ensured that all the people learned from the indomitable mental strength displayed by the soldiers. In the course of this, unity in ideological viewpoint and fighting spirit was achieved among the people, and the single-hearted unity of the whole society developed to a higher stage. The single-hearted unity of the leader and the people with one ideology and will has become the greatest might of the DPRK.

Thanks to his seasoned leadership, the Korean people could build up lasting foundations for building a prosperous country, and they are now advancing dynamically towards a thriving socialist country under the sagacious leadership of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.

Kim Tae Ho

2023-09-06