N. Korean leader continues provincial inspection tour

SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has visited several
factories in a northern town, state media said Friday, part of a spate of
provincial tours he has made amid high-profile diplomacy in Pyongyang.
The North's top commander was apparently in the Kanggye Province during the visit
by U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy Stephen Bosworth to the capital
earlier this week for talks on restarting a multilateral forum on the country's
nuclear program. Bosworth said after returning to Seoul on Thursday that he did
not meet with Kim.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim visited the Jangjagang Machine
Tool Factory, the Kanggye Knitting Mill and the Kanggye Wine Factory in the city
of Kanggye, a report that followed his visits to tractor and cattle farms in the
same town a day earlier.
At the knitting mill, Kim "stressed the need to steadily boost production, as
solving the issue of clothing is as important as settling the food problem," the
report said.
Kim also praised workers at the wine factory for enhancing productivity through
technical innovation and called on them also to begin production of beer and raw
rice wine, it said. As usual, the report did not say when such visits took place.
His entourage was composed of the same members as the last one reported Thursday:
the Workers' Party secretary Kim Ki-nam and party department directors Pak
Nam-gi, Kim Kyong-hui and Jang Song-thaek. Kim Kyong-hui is the leader's only
sister, and Jang is her husband. The pair are believed to be aiding the senior
Kim's alleged power transfer to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong-un.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)