North Korea said at the second-day session of the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party, its largest political event, that over the past five years all plans had been successfully completed.
On the 21st, the Korean Central News Agency reported on the content of the second-day session of the "report on the general review of the work of the Party Central Committee" held the previous day, saying, "The past five years were a chronicle of great transformation and great turn with profound significance for our Party and the development of the revolution."
The session began with a report by State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un on the general review of the work of the 8th Party Central Committee. Participants listened to the execution progress of Party and state policies over the past five years and said, "Under the leadership of the 8th Party Central Committee, headed by Comrade Kim Jong-un, remarkable achievements were made across the board in Party and state affairs, including politics, the economy, culture, defense, and diplomacy," adding, "This will serve as a springboard for a leap forward that ensures great transformation and success." Specific assessments on policy toward the South and toward the United States were not included in the report.
The report was said to include that, amid the struggle to implement the five major Party-building lines of the new era, the Party's leadership, organizational capacity, and fighting strength were further strengthened, and that the five-year plans in each sector decided by the 8th Party Congress were successfully completed.
North Korea assessed that "through the course of struggle during the 8th term, independent strength markedly increased," and that "a scientific foundation for development was built to move to a new stage in each sector of socialist construction."
North Korea is pushing a "15-year vision" to achieve a "powerful socialist state" by 2035. It appears to be emphasizing that, starting with this 9th Party Congress, it successfully completed the first phase over the past five years in order to enter the second phase, the "leap period."