North Korea officials applaud new Pyongyang mushroom factory

SEOUL, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Top North Korean officials participated in a building dedication ceremony for a new mushroom cultivation plant in Pyongyang, but Kim Jong Un was not in attendance.

Premier Pak Pong Ju, Vice Chairman of the central committee of the Korean Workers' Party Kwak Bom Gi, and Vice Premier Ro Du Chol attended the ceremony Monday, according to Pyongyang's state-controlled news agency KCNA.

North Korea called the new plant an "asset" that would "significantly contribute to improving people's lives" and is a "construction of the Workers' Party era" that "perfectly" combines "an integrated production system and a scientific supply system."

The plant "sets the standard for the industrialization of mushroom cultivation and establishes the foundation for providing the people with delicious mushrooms high in nutrition," the statement read.

In the course of the ceremony Pak said the plant sets forth the highest principle of the Workers' Party, which is to improve people's lives.

"All must follow Comrade Kim Jong Un's leadership, while struggling more powerfully so a flowering socialist paradise, the dream and ideals of the people, shines into reality," Pak said, according to state media.

North Korean officials including Kim have chosen to stay away from military sites since Pyongyang conducted its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9.

Kim has in the span of a month visited various factories manufacturing civilian goods, including a soap factory, a bottled water plant and a souvenir manufacturer.

Provocations have not been reported since last week, when North Korean diplomats met with former U.S. officials in an informal dialogue in Malaysia where they expressed an interest in revisiting the language of a 2005 joint statement on denuclearization.