At a year-end party meeting, North Korea’s provinces were ordered to improve the quality of consumer goods and basic foodstuffs as their first task for the development of light industry in 2024. Provincial party committees have now submitted their plans for consumer goods and basic foodstuffs to the central government in Pyongyang for approval.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a Daily NK source inside North Korea said Monday that Kangwon Province‘s party committee sent its New Year’s plan to Pyongyang on Jan. 8. In the plan, the province pledged to “contribute to the qualitative improvement of the people’s lives by improving the quality of consumer goods and basic foodstuffs as our first task and waging a struggle. The central government ratified the plan in late January.”
In the plan, Kangwon Province said it would “change the reality that people have to pay a lot for imported goods at basic food stores in markets,” noting that the province imports all basic foods such as cooking oil, spices, soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper and sesame seeds from China.
The provincial authorities also said that local residents depend on expensive daily necessities imported from China, such as facial cleansing soap, laundry soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, razors, toilet paper, and liquid soap, and pledged to switch to domestically produced items.
The plan called for “the beginning of an age when imports will naturally disappear and people will simply prefer locally made products by making basic food and consumer products that are better than imports.”
Specifically, the province’s plan called for the local production of basic foods and daily necessities and the creation of public demand by selling them at below-market prices in state-run shops.
The plan appears to reflect the North Korean government’s policy of increasing public preference for state-run shops over markets by “normalizing” the production of industrial goods by state-run enterprises and the operation of state-run commercial networks.
Ultimately, Kangwon Province has signaled its desire to produce and sell many food products and daily necessities locally, generating revenue for the provincial party and helping to stabilize public livelihoods while creating a consumer culture that prefers locally produced products over imports.