hankyoreh

North Korea has recently convened a Cabinet meeting to discuss food shortages, China's Xinhua News Agency said Sunday, as international concerns grow over the North's economic woes.

The North's Cabinet recently held an enlarged session and decided to address the chronic shortages of food and consumer goods, the news agency said, citing a recent edition of the cabinet daily Minju Joson.

"The meeting also decided to focus national efforts on developing such major industries as electricity, coal mining, metal and transportation this year," Xinhua said.

The World Food Program has warned that North Korea could face its worst food shortage in years because of severe flooding over the past two years, soaring international grain prices and diplomatic problems with major donor nations. State food rations were stopped for six months even in the capital of Pyongyang in April, according to Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group.

North Korea has depended heavily on international aid to help feed its 23 million people since the late 1990s when a series of droughts and floods hit the country.

Among the participants at the meeting were Premier Kim Yong-il and other members of the Cabinet, the daily was quoted as saying.

BEIJING, April 20 (Yonhap)