N. Koreans rally to support New Year projects

SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Yonhap) -- About 100,000 North Koreans rallied in Pyongyang on
Saturday to show support for the government's New Year projects that called for
stepped-up efforts to rebuild the nation's frail economy, state media said.

The joint editorial, a blueprint for North Korea's policy goals in the new year
and released by the country's state media on Friday, stressed the need to develop
light industry and agriculture as the "major fronts in the efforts for improving
the people's standard of living."
North Korea also called for an end to hostile relations with the United States
and reached out for better ties with South Korea.
The Korean Central Broadcasting Station and Pyongyang Radio both reported that
some 100,000 citizens of Pyongyang rallied in Kimilsung Square, where they
pledged to carry out the tasks laid out by the New Year editorial. North Korea
customarily holds a series of mass rallies nationwide after rolling out New Year
policies.
"The general orientation of this year's efforts," a senior Pyongyang city
official named Choe Yong-rim said in a speech at the gathering, "is to launch a
sweeping campaign to bring about a drastic turn in improving the people's
standard in the flames of the great revolutionary upsurge."
Choe noted that the year 2010 holds significant importance for the country's
foremost campaign, which aims to build a thriving socialist nation by 2012, the
birth centennial of Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and father of the current
leader, Kim Jong-il.
To improve people's livelihoods, production should be rapidly increased in the
areas of such daily necessities as grain, livestock, fish and fruits, as well as
coal and other energy needs, Choe declared.
The participants also vowed to support the Korean People's Army and the defense
industry, the reports said.
The mass rally was attended by Premier Kim Yong-il, Choe Thae-bok, secretary of
the Workers' Party central committee, and Yang Hyong-sop, vice-president of the
Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly. The nation's leader, Kim Jong-il, was
absent from the event, as is usual, with portraits of both himself and his father
erected on central stages, according to the reports.
The participants later marched along nearby streets while holding banners, the
reports said.
The Japan-based newspaper Choson Sinbo, widely seen as conveying North Korea's
official stance, said Saturday that department stores in Pyongyang were kept
busy with crowds of New Year's shoppers.
"There has been a great increase in the number of customers" and "people came in
an endless stream" as commodities were supplied at lower costs following a
currency denomination, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Pyongyang.
North Korea conducted a surprise currency redenomination in late November,
exchanging old bills with new ones at a ratio of 100 to one.
South Korean officials said North Korea has increased its supply of daily
commodities to ease complaints over the redenomination.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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