N. KOREA - North Korea expressed confidence Friday that its effort to build a strong socialist economy is gaining momentum thanks to its people's mental strength, amid reports of internal disorder sparked by its surprise currency reform.
"The Korean people today, demonstrating their mental power of self-regeneration and fight against hardships, are making strenuous efforts to build a strong, prosperous and powerful socialist nation," the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
North Korean media remained silent as the drastic currency revaluation, reportedly implemented on Monday without a warning, is believed to have thrown its citizens into utter panic. The North Korean government initially set a cap on new denominations allowed per household at 100,000 or 150,000 won, but it was frequently adjusting the limit to try to settle the mounting public outrage that was generating violence, suicides and murders, according to the Daily NK, a Seoul-based online newspaper that specializes in North Korean affairs.
The KCNA instead presented a rosy picture for the North's isolated economy, underlining the people's unity, their self-reliant system and scientific feats, such as its April launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2. Pyongyang argues the launch has successfully orbited a satellite, while outsiders say no such satellite has entered space and view it as a failed missile test. The U.N. Security Council subsequently adopted a punitive resolution against the North.
The reason why the satellite launch became successful "is because the Korean people exerted a strenuous struggle with an independent spirit and conviction that their own style and their own power are the best way," the KCNA said.
"There are quite a few things that are still in shortage for the Korean people," it said. "But nothing is impossible" as they remain united around the Workers' Party and have a self-reliant economy," the KCNA said.
source: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/
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