North Korea Leadership Watch

Research and Analysis on the DPRK Leadership

Kim Jong Un Visits Sinu’iju Measuring Instrument Factory

Kim Jong Un speaks next to a CNC machine during a visit to the Sinu'iju Measuring Instruments Factory (Photo: KCNA).

Kim Jong Un speaks next to a CNC machine during a visit to the Sinu’iju Measuring Instruments Factory (Photo: KCNA).

Kim Jong Un’s last observed appearance was his visit to the Pyongyang Corn Processing Factory

DPRK state media reported on September 4 (Friday) that Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) visited the Sinu’iju Measuring Instrument Factory.  Also in attendance were Kim Chun Sop (Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Secretary for Military (Machine-Building) Industries), Jo Chun Ryong (Chairman of the Second Economy Commission), Jo Yong Won (Deputy Director of the WPK Finance and Accounting Department), Hong Yong Chil (Deputy Director of the WPK Machine-Building Industry Department) and Lt. Gen. Yun Tong Hyon (Vice Minister of the People’s Armed Forces).

According to KCNA, Kim Jong Un said that was he was “so pleased to receive a report about world-class ultra-modern measuring instruments developed by the factory and came to meet the developers” and that he “highly appreciated” their accomplishments.  Jong Un toured a monument and revolutionary history education room.  Jong Un “expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the factory, to which President Kim Il Sung (Kim Il-so’ng) and leader Kim Jong Il (Kim Cho’ng-il) had always paid deep attention” and he said that he also “attaches very great importance, manufactured new modern measuring instruments to be used in various fields of the national economy and defense industry” and had  “thus carried out another behest of the great leaders.”

He toured several sections of the factory and, according to KCNA “learned in detail about the technical specifications and performance of the newly-developed measuring instruments.”  He said that the “instruments are of the world level” and that it is a “remarkable success that such ultra-modern instruments were manufactured with indigenous efforts and technology.”  He also noted that the factory had “provided a big stepping-stone for developing the nation’s field of measuring instrument production at a leaping pace and speeding up the building of a prosperous country.”  Jong Un indicated that the Sinu’iju Meauring Instrument Factory has a “very important role to play” and he “set the goals to be attained by the factory in production, urging it to increase the output of measuring instruments developed on a higher level of Chuch’e-orientation, modernization and localization.”

Kim Jong Un tours the Sinu'iju Measuring Instruments Factory. Also in attendance are WPK Secretary Kim Chun Sam (a.) and Second Economy Commission Chairman Jo Chun Ryong (b.) (Photo: KCNA).

He also stressed the “need to modernize the factory as required by the age of knowledge-based economy in order to drastically raise the output of ultra-modern measuring instruments of Korean style and ensure their quality” and “called for turning it into a manpower-saving factory and an icon factory in the field of measuring instrument production by putting all its production processes on an automated and CNC (computer numerical control) basis.”

Kim Jong Un also toured the dining facilities where he remarked, as he usually does during his factory visits, that “bigger success can be made in production only when better living conditions are provided for the workers” and listed ways the factory could improve its services to its employees.  According to KCNA, Jong Un said that the factory employees are “strong in revolutionary spirit and there will be nothing impossible to do when going together with such workers.  He said he would assume the title of honorary factory manager as a sign of “his deepest trust.”  He also said that “there is no fortress unconquerable when our workers live and struggle like those of Kunja-ri in the 1950s.  It is advisable to conduct a higher level of mass movement for learning from the working spirit and traits of the Kunja-ri workers as well as the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement.”

Kim Jong Un inspects products of the Sinu'iju Measuring Instruments Factory (Photo: KCNA).

Kim Jong Un inspects products of the Sinu’iju Measuring Instruments Factory (Photo: KCNA).

Jong Un ended his visit with a commemorative photo-op with the factory’s employees and management and he expressed his “belief that they would make positive contribution to the building of a thriving country by developing and producing more measuring instruments, true to the Workers’ Party of Korea’s line of building an economic power and its strategic plan.”

An affiliate of 38 North