Kim Jong Un praises automation at North Korea munitions plant

Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Kim Jong Un provided field guidance at a North Korea munitions factory while highlighting the importance of robots in industry, according to state media.

Pyongyang-controlled news agency KCNA reported Tuesday the North Korean leader visited the Kangdong Precision Machine Plant in Pyongyang, while describing Kim as the "Chairman of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, chairman of the state council, and chief of the Korean People's Armed Forces."

According to KCNA, Kim also visited the factory in January 2015.

The North Korean leader stressed the importance of modernizing factories and toured the production exhibit area and manufacturing facilities.

Kim said the factory was a "worthy spectacle" because "robots" had installed the materials on site.

"Automation of all production processes, high level of streamlining, have reduced production costs while increasing output by five times compared with the previous period," Kim reportedly said, according to KCNA.

Kim also said workers must become "knowledgeable people familiar with modern science and technology," before taking a souvenir photograph with workers and officials from the Korean Workers' Party.

Kim regularly visits areas near Pyongyang, the capital, but has avoided areas where he's not well liked, including North Hamgyong Province, where a flood in 2016 left at least tens of thousands of North Koreans without shelter.

The state in response built a massive number of new homes for flood victims, but the construction effort has resulted in a glut of supply according to a source in North Korea, Radio Free Asia reported.

North Korea is responding to the shortage of new tenants by ordering soldiers to move into the homes, according to the report.

The lack of new tenants is a result of a larger than expected number of dead or missing, the source said.

Many flood victims could have crossed the river into China after the disaster, according to the source.