hankyoreh

Impoverished North Korea Wednesday announced a five-year plan to develop the nation's science and technology capabilities by 2012, when the communist state will mark the centennial of its late leader Kim Il-sung's birth.

"From this year we will start implementing the new five-year plan for the development of national science and technology ending in 2012," the North's Premier Kim Yong-il said in a report to a one-day parliamentary session.

The report was covered by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The North set the year as the deadline for the reconstruction of its sluggish economy in a New Year's joint editorial issued by three major state-run newspapers.

"We will systematically increase state investment in this field, increasing the responsibilities and roles of scientists and technicians, so as to successfully carry out assignments under the plan and thus put the country's science and technology on an advanced level in the shortest possible period," Kim said.

The North, for the present, will "make sure that all the fields of national economy carry out the first-year tasks of the plan without fail this year," and increase nation-wide efforts to develop the IT industry, the official said.

North Korea also increased its budget spending for this year by 2.5 percent from a year earlier during the annual session of the Supreme People's Assembly, its rubber-stamp legislature, in Pyongyang.

The KCNA gave no figures for spending for this year and last.

Experts, estimated this year's budget at US$3.2 billion.

The increased spending will be focused on "bolstering the pilot sectors, basic industrial sectors of the national economy and bringing about a landmark turn in improving the people's living standards, while making sustained efforts to increase the defense capability of the country," KCNA said.

However, there were no discussions reported on the nuclear issue and the inter-Korean ties that have cooled since the recent launch of a conservative South Korean government. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, chairman of the National Defense Commission who also is a SPA member, did not show up.

The session came amid progress in the six-nation process on denuclearizing North Korea. The North's foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday "a consensus was reached on the U.S. measure to make political compensation and the nuclear declaration essential for winding up the implementation of the agreement," according to the KCNA.

The six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization have stalled over Pyongyang's hesitation to produce a full declaration of its nuclear programs. The North was supposed to receive economic aid and political concessions including removal from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, in return for submitting the declaration.

SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap)