Present there were Ri Yong Su, department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, officials of the GFTUK and the DWUK and other officials concerned, workers and union members.

Reporters and speakers said that his historic New Year Address serves as the banner instilling the conviction of the bright future of Songun Korea and revolutionary self-esteem into the Korean people and important guidelines indicting the shortcut to new leap forward and innovations.

They called for strengthening material and labor assistance to the agricultural sector, setting up many good structures representing the Songun era and diligently learning modern science and technology.

They said that the metallurgical and chemical industries, twin buttresses of an economic giant, should supply sufficient amounts of steel and various kinds of chemical goods that are needed to reenergize the national economy as a whole and improve the people's standard of living.

The electric-power and coal-mining industries and the rail transport sector should make coordinated innovations and thus give strong impetus to the development of the national economy and the light industrial factories should step up modernization and introduction of CNC technology into their production lines and put production on a normal footing, they noted.

They voiced their determination to make a big stride in the construction of culture to contribute to building the highly civilized socialist nation, intensify the assistance to the People's Army and consolidate the country's defence capabilities.