The provincial party committee of North Hamgyong Province has reportedly held a plenary meeting to discuss ways to fulfill economic plans in the fisheries sector and develop the fishing industry.
This comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly ordered that more fish be supplied to Pyongyang residents.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province, at the meeting held early last week, the provincial party committee pointed out that the fisheries sector has not fulfilled the plan for the “people’s economy,” with fishing operations hindered for the last two years due to the protracted COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting discussed measures to develop the fishing industry going forward.
The managers of fishery enterprises, party secretaries and technical experts in the fish farming field participated in the meeting, where they discussed late into the night tasks and plans to “lift the beacon” in the fisheries sector.
In particular, with fishermen unable to fish in distant waters for the last two years due to nationwide emergency quarantine policies in the face of COVID-19, the meeting called on the fisheries industry to achieve policies and fulfill plans in the fisheries sector focusing on fish farming in close waters rather than actual fishing.
The meeting stressed that with the fishing sector falling far short of plans, fishery industry officials should refrain from complaining and instead research ways to make fishing more scientific and carry out fishing operations in close waters through advanced methods to send more fish to Pyongyang residents.
This essentially amounts to an order for fishing villages to send more fish to Pyongyang, much as North Korea’s grainery regions of North Hwanghae Province and North Pyongan Province are being compelled to harvest more grain to send rice to the nation’s capital.
The source said the meeting called on the province to take the lead in preparing for next year’s fishing season by operating equipment to detect schools of fish in close waters and improving the reporting and command structure so that fishermen seize opportunities for catches.
Moreover, the provincial party committee and provincial people’s committee pledged to play a “pioneering role” in helping subordinate units and to invite fishery science researchers to the province to provide technology to make the local fishing industry more scientific and modern.
To do this, the meeting said fishery enterprises in the province should reform themselves to develop fish farming in inland waters and build and scientifically manage more modern, year-round indoor fish farms rather than focus on expanding fishing zones, noting that these methods present few COVID-19 concerns.
The meeting also reportedly called on officials to abandon unbeneficial operations that waste expensive diesel fuel and produce little fish, and instead help the province become a model for the nation in farming seaweed, sea tangle, oysters, dried seaweed, blue mussels, scallops, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and other seafood products.
The source said the meeting ended with an order for fishery enterprises to provide needed refrigerated storage installations and take charge of storing and preserving fish before they are handed to distribution units. The meeting instructed enterprises to begin work on this immediately.
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