Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, visited the Sinpho City Offshore Farm under construction in the Phungo-dong area in the city of Sinpho, South Hamgyong Province, to acquaint himself with the progress made in its construction, creation of its culture grounds and preparations for their management and operation.

Accompanying him were major cadres of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, leading cadres of design and construction units, Jang Kyong Guk, chief secretary of the Sinpho City Committee of South Hamgyong Province of the WPK, and other senior officials of the city.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, chairing a historic consultative meeting on regional economic development on July 15, set forth a revolutionary policy of putting the material and cultural life of the regional people on a track of radical development by working out a proper plan for exploiting and utilizing the economic resources and overall potentialities of each region in keeping with its actual conditions and by taking practical measures to decisively boost the regional economy with strong national support. To confirm its feasibility, he gave a task for building a new model of offshore farming on a trial basis. According to his instructions, the construction of the Sinpho City Offshore Farm has been propelled for several months as a major target of the regional construction policy.

With firm resolve to thoroughly implement the Party’s regional economic development policy, soldier-builders and officials, technicians and employees of the farm have simultaneously pushed ahead with the construction of buildings and culture grounds and preparations for their management and operation. As a result, the overall construction project has been carried out at over 70 percent along with the completion of 100 hectares of culture grounds, where scallops and kelp are being farmed on a trial basis.

Under a goal to put its modern offshore farming on the highest scientific level, the farm has proactively introduced new farming techniques and methods to ensure the survival rate of a fast-growing species of scallop at 80 percent and provide a scientific and technical guarantee for increasing its production. It has also achieved important successes in applying advanced techniques to kelp farming.

Thanks to the direct care and solicitude of the Party Central Committee, the farm is being furnished with essential production means, equipment and implements, including various fish farming materials, plastic boats and aquaculture mother ships, and the manufacturing and securing of sets of equipment to be installed at the processing grounds is proceeding at the final stage.

Saying that to secure the motive force of regional economic development by fully exploiting various resources and natural and geographical environments of regions, in addition to the main construction projects in each region specified by the Regional Development 20×10 Policy, also takes an important share in the Party’s regional economic development policy, he repeatedly stressed the need to help all regions lay the foundations for developing independently by effectively developing and using their own natural and economic resources. To this end, it is important to first map out correct long-term development orientation and plan for each city and county to make the most of their conditions and environments for their own economic development, he added.

Through the designing of this farm, the industrial facility design sector has grasped and put into practice new concepts of design based on the proactive application of various space-using methods, focusing on functions and management convenience, by eliminating such a previous mode as planning the plane uniformly without considering scientific accuracy and practicability, he said, appreciating this trend as a positive change that has resolved stagnation in designing industrial facilities.

But our overall construction still fails to strictly go through all the processes, ranging from the working out of the requirements of the construction progress to designing, deliberating, approving and budget planning, according to scientific and legal procedures based on the construction law, he said. Pointing out that in recent years, architectural designs have revealed not a few such taste-oriented undisciplined practices of not ensuring economic profitability as laying stress only on the visual effect, rather than the uses, capacities and functions of the relevant facilities, and fixing scales without proper calculations, he cited their typical examples.

Saying that the overall design sector should base itself on an improved work system on the principle of properly calculating the economic efficiency and profitability, reflecting on designs the way of obtaining optimum results and enhancing the utility-specific functions of relevant structures, he stressed the need to further strengthen the system of inspecting, deliberating and approving designs.

He instructed the relevant national agencies to establish a well-regulated system for disseminating the latest sci-tech data of advanced shallow-sea culture and push ahead with improving the technical skills of the relevant units’ employees.

After learning about the progress made in construction, he concluded that it is necessary to send more skilled workers in order to successfully complete the project, which is being pushed ahead as a major policy-oriented project this year, before the forthcoming December Plenary Meeting of the WPK Central Committee, and gave relevant instructions.

Calling for properly building and managing the Sinpho City Offshore Farm to turn it into a model of offshore farming and propagate its experience across the country, he noted that the state should responsibly provide coastal cities and counties with conditions for revitalizing aquaculture. He stressed repeatedly that in order to implement the Party’s regional development policy, it is necessary to create maximum possibilities for the regions to achieve their development, after making scientific calculations on the basis of a comprehensive survey of all resources across the country.

His field guidance at the offshore farm under construction serves as an important occasion that provided a firm practical guarantee for all regions to work out a clear development strategy and set long-term goals for radically improving the scientific character and efficiency of their development and to actively push ahead with their implementation from an innovative and creative standpoint in the drive for carrying out the historic cause of regional rejuvenation, which is being dramatically expanded and intensified.