Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) -- Respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in his New Year Address set forth tasks to launch a revolutionary general offensive to achieve fresh victory on all fronts of building a powerful socialist country this year.

"Let us launch a revolutionary general offensive to achieve fresh victory on all fronts of building a powerful socialist country!"‒this is the revolutionary slogan we should uphold.

The central task facing socialist economic construction this year is to enhance the independence and Juche character of the national economy and improve the people's standard of living as required by the revolutionary counterstrategy put forward by the Second Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party.

The electric-power industry should maintain and reinforce the self-supporting power generation bases, and direct a great deal of efforts to developing new power sources.

The metallurgical industry should further improve the Juche-oriented iron- and steel-making technologies, increase the iron production capacity and drastically raise the quality of metallic materials in order to satisfy the needs of the national economy for iron and steel.

The chemical industry should step up the establishment of the C1 chemical industry, push the projects for catalyst production base and phosphatic fertilizer factory as scheduled, and renovate and perfect the sodium carbonate production line whose starting material is glauberite.

The machine-building industry should modernize the Kumsong Tractor Factory, Sungni Motor Complex and other factories to develop and produce world-level machinery in our style.

The coal and mineral production and rail transport sectors should make concerted efforts.

Light-industry factories need to transform their equipment and production lines into labour- and electricity-saving ones and produce and supply more diversified and quality consumer goods with domestic raw and other materials, and provinces, cities and counties should develop the local economy in a characteristic way by relying on their own raw material resources.

The agricultural and fishing fronts should effect an upswing. We should introduce seeds of superior strains, high-yield farming methods and high-performance farm machines on an extensive scale, do farming scientifically and technologically so as to fulfil the cereals production plan without fail, and boost the production of livestock products, fruits, greenhouse vegetables and mushrooms. We should enhance our ship building and repair capacities, launch scientific fishing campaigns, and reenergize aquatic farming.

This year the service personnel and people should join efforts to complete the construction of the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area in the shortest period of time, push ahead with major construction projects including the renovation of Samjiyon County, the construction of the Tanchon Power Station and the second-stage waterway project of South Hwanghae Province, and channel steady efforts into the construction of houses.

Building on the success we achieved in the forest restoration campaign, we should properly protect and manage the forests that have already been created, improve the technical conditions of roads, conduct river improvement on a regular basis, and protect environment in a scientific and responsible manner.

Socialist culture should be developed in a comprehensive way.

The self-reliant defence capability should be further consolidated.

In order to successfully carry out the fighting tasks this year, we should rally the whole Party more firmly on its organizational and ideological basis and establish a thoroughgoing revolutionary climate within the Party. In this way, we can constantly enhance its fighting efficiency and leadership role in the overall revolution and construction. -0-