The Japan Times - Kim vows to 'transform' North Korea with building drive

Attending a ceremony for a construction project in Unnyul County in South Hwanghae Province, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim announced projects to be built in 20 regions.

"We are now standing on the starting line of our gigantic struggle for another year, aimed at transforming the regions," Kim said.

"Nearly one-third of the cities and counties across the country will have been transformed," he said.

Kim also hailed soldiers mobilised at construction sites as "creators of the people's wellbeing".

Those remarks could suggest "an effort to shift significant portions of conventional military manpower into construction while focusing on (the country's) nuclear capabilities," Ahn Chan-il, a researcher originally from North Korea, told AFP.

Images released by state media showed Kim shovelling soil alongside other officials at a ceremony attended by an excited crowd clapping and waving North Korean flags.

Photos showed a large, dramatic celebratory explosion that state media described as "thrilling".

A landmark congress of North Korea's ruling Workers Party -- its first in five years -- is expected to take place in the coming weeks, though no date has been confirmed.

The nuclear-armed country is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programmes and has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.

North Korea has long been criticised for prioritising the military and its banned weapons programmes over adequately providing for its people.

Kim has recently bolstered military ties with Russia, having sent thousands of troops to aid Moscow's war in Ukraine. Experts say this has offered an economic lifeline to Kim's regime.

Pyongyang has also moved to revive inbound tourism to earn much-needed hard cash, developing lavish coastal and mountain resorts.

And analysts have said a regional development policy pushed by Kim two years ago is tacit acknowledgement of the major disparity in conditions between the showcase capital Pyongyang and the rest of the country.

The leader has also openly expressed anger at the slow pace of some projects, chastising lazy officials and even firing his vice premier in public for alleged incompetence last week.

K.Hashimoto--JT