After summit with Trump tanks, N Korea leader Kim stresses on economic growth

Pyongyang, March 9: The second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February ended without success as the two sides failed to arrive at an agreement since the US could not fulfil North Korea's stubborn demand of lifting the sanctions imposed on it.

Following the failure of the summit, Kim has reportedly stressed economic development as his nation's urgent task, Pyongyang's state media said on Saturday, March 9.

It was said that in a letter to a national conference of propaganda officials held in the North Korean capital earlier this week, Kim emphasised on the need to concentrate on building the socialist economy which has faced hardships because of international sanctions.

Kim, who took over power after his father Kim Jong-Il's death in 2011, asked the party officials to encourage ideology education for the citizens to ensure that "a great progress will be made in socialist economic construction," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, as per Yonhap news agency.

It was Kim's first message that was unveiled in public after he returned home from Hanoi where the second summit with Trump was held. The North Korean media and officials though celebrated his longest-ever foreign trip which he made in a train and viewed the summit as secondary.

There were also reports that North Korea was restoring part of the Dongchang-ri missile launch site that it had started dismantling last year.