Socialist Korea Develops Light Industry

Korean News Service, People’s Weekly World, 1 July 1995, pg. 14.

PYONGYANG, DPRK—The modernization of light industry is progressing apace in [North] Korea.

In the last five years alone, many factories and workshops were built and existing factories were rebuit and expanded along modern lines. Nearly 600 cases of invention and new technology, and thousands of technical innovation proposals were introduced into production. As a result, the production capacity of light industry grew by ten percent. In the same period, technical transformation of production processes was carried out and modern, high-speed equipment introducted at the Pyongyang Textile Combine, Kaesong Textile Mill, Nyongbyon and Pakchon Silk Mills, Pyongyang Hose Factory, Kangso Knit GoodsFactory and many other textile fatories.

Factories and workshops outfitted with advanced equipment have started operation, among them Wonsan Export Garment Factory, Ranam Clothes Factory and the Slop Workshop of Tongdaewon Garment Factory.

Thus cloth production capacity increased by 12 percent, spun silk by 1 percent and knitwear by 9 percent.

In the shoemaking industry, modern production centers of injection-molded footwear have been built and automatic streamlines introduced at Chongjin, Sunshon, Sariwon and Wonsan shoemaking factores, with the added capacity of producing tens of millions of pairs of shoes.

The technical and material foundations of the foodstuff industry have been further consolidated with the building of more than 2000 foodstuff factories across the country including Pyongyang Children’s Foodstuff Factory and the streamlining of Sakju Foodstuff Factory.

Production bases for daily necessities including Pyongyang Daily Necessities Combine, Sinuiju Cosmetic Factory, Wonsan and Sinhung Disabled Soldiers’ Plastic Goods Factories were rebuilt and expanded along modern lines.

The government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which takes it as the supreme principle of action to constantly raise the people’s living standards, is sysematically increasing investment in the light industry every year.