Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), has called on his ruling Workers' Party to thoroughly implement the five-year economic plan released at a congress last month, state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday.

Kim chaired a plenary meeting of the ruling party's central committee on Monday, following the party's eighth congress in January where it put forth a new five-year economic development plan.

Kim sharply criticized the "passive and self-protecting tendencies revealed by the state economic guidance organs in the course of setting this year's goals," KCNA said.

He stressed the need to provide the party members with practical means of innovation that would help bring about realistic change and substantial progress from the first year of the five-year plan, KCNA said.

Kim laid out detailed tasks for the party to attain the economic goals of increased iron and steel production and investment as well as a push for better infrastructure, transportation, construction and commerce.

"He evinced the determination and will of the Party Central Committee to take important measures to push forward the economic construction and provide the people with more stable and improved living conditions despite the persistent emergency anti-epidemic situation," KCNA reported.

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: DPRK leader Kim Jong Un attends a plenary meeting of the Workers' Party Central Committee in Pyongyang, DPRK, February 8, 2021. /Reuters)