Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Gives
Field Guidance at Major Tank Factory
Pyongyang, May 4 (KCNA) -- 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, gave field guidance at a major tank factory.
The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un was accompanied by Jo Chun
Ryong, secretary of the WPK Central Committee, Kim Jong Sik, first deputy
department director of the WPK Central Committee, and other senior officials
of the Party Central Committee, and Kim Yong Hwan, president of the
Academy of Defence Sciences.

He was greeted by the officials of the factory on the spot.
Going round various places of the factory, he learned in detail about the state
of production and modernization at the factory and the implementation of the
research tasks for core technology of tank.
The Academy of Defence Sciences and the workers and technicians of the
factory, that have made single-minded efforts to carry out the tasks put forth at
the Eighth Congress of the WPK on setting it as the pivotal goal of the
munitions industry to put the military hardware on an intelligent, precision and
highly-efficient basis and on orienting all the processes of research,
development and production to its implementation, are making remarkable
progress and successes in developing our-style tanks and armoured weapons
and improving their combat performance.
Kim Jong Un highly appreciated that thanks to the role of the guidance team
of the Party Central Committee and the correct and expert guidance of the
Academy of Defence Sciences, more development-oriented prospect has
been opened up in the field of the tank industry and, in particular, the idea and
policy of the WPK Central Military Commission on further perfecting the core
technology of the main battle tank are being carried on through steady
development and production success.

He stressed that to replace the armoured weapons of the last century in our
ground forces with latest tanks and armoured vehicles is the most important
task in building up the armed forces and modernizing the ground forces.

He expressed satisfaction over the fact that the field of the tank industry
upgraded the structural design of our-style tanks and composition of their
firepower system to improve the service convenience of the tank crew, proved
the scientific accuracy and reliability of the design of high-thrust engine and
provided a firm guarantee for serial production.
Saying that the travelling and different other manoeuvring characteristics of
tanks were improved through the development of integrated power
transmission device and the new-type active protection system, passive
protection means and electronic warfare system were updated in a more
innovative way, and that all these successes mean great progress in the core
technology of our-style tanks, he highly praised the scientists and technicians
for their feats.
Saying that today when the subjective and objective environment has
changed, it is impossible to build the armoured forces properly unless we give
a correct definition of the military functions and role of tank and direction of its
development in modern warfare and reconsider the viewpoint on the tank
design first of all, he clarified the main orientation of the modernization of
tanks and the tasks and ways for it.
He said that to create a large-scale capacity for producing state-of-the-art
tanks and self-propelled guns and upgrade the overall armoured weapon
systems of our armed forces in a short span of time by stepping up the
modernization of this munitions enterprise and relevant enterprises is an
important task for realizing the far-reaching idea and strategic plan of the
Party Central Committee for bringing about a second revolution in the
armoured forces.
Saying that he supports the plan for modernizing all production lines of the
factory in particular, he noted that the plan will be deliberated in real earnest.
He said that the factory, which occupies a key position in developing tank and
armoured forces, should make steady technological progress and bring about
an upsurge in production and, at the same time, become a model in
establishing the culture of the munitions industrial sector in the new century by
paying due attention to improving the labour and production environment on
an advanced basis. -0-