The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, visited the clothing and footwear exhibition of the light industry sector on October 19.

Leading cadres of the Party and government accompanied him.

At the site, Comrade Kim Jong Un was greeted by responsible officials of the Light Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.

The “National Clothing and Footwear Exhibition-2026”, held under the theme “A Vigorous Drive for New Product Development and Quality Improvement”, featured more than 77,000 items of clothing products in over 30 varieties and more than 170,000 pairs of footwear in over 60 varieties, produced by major light industry factories and the newly built city and county garment factories, as well as some 270 units producing clothing, footwear and bags, all made in keeping with the tastes of our people and with a grasp of global development trends.

Comrade Kim Jong Un expressed satisfaction as he looked round the exhibition hall, which epitomizes the flowering and development of the light industry sector that is propelling the improvement of the material and cultural well-being of our people and achieving rapid progress.

Comrade Kim Jong Un said that the nationwide light industry exhibition, held every October amid the welcome of the people, has taken a close place in the cultural and emotional life of our people, and appreciated that this year's exhibition had made further progress in scale, content and form, different again from last year's.

Comrade Kim Jong Un said that in every respect—the shapes, forms, colours and quality of the exhibited products, and even their trademarks and arrangement—the leap-forward and substantial development of the light industry sector, which is concentrating on quality improvement and new product development and heightening the competition drive, stands out clearly, and that this exhibition eloquently testifies to the ever-rising cultural level of our people and gives an intuitive view of the development trajectory of our light industry.

Comrade Kim Jong Un said that the dozens of varieties of stylish and high-quality clothing and footwear products submitted by the city and county garment factories and other local light industry factories newly built under the Party's regional development policy are proudly vying shoulder to shoulder with the central products, and that this constitutes a clear demonstration of the justice and vitality of our Party's policy aimed at eliminating the differences between centre and province and between town and countryside and achieving simultaneous and balanced development throughout the country.

Comrade Kim Jong Un said that we must further accelerate the vigorous development trend of light industry so that the light industry foundations built at the centre and in the provinces, and expanding every year, can satisfy the rising cultural and emotional demands and diverse lives of the people, and thus the progress of light industry should lead the noble and beautiful trend and the development of civilization of our society.

Comrade Kim Jong Un said that it is more important than anything else in the light industry sector to give precedence to and develop product designs, and stressed that design contests and design exhibitions should be organized in various forms and methods, and through them the cultural tastes of the working people should be grasped and introduced into production, thereby raising economic effectiveness and the scientific character of product manufacturing.

Comrade Kim Jong Un set forth the orientation and tasks for the development of light industry, including the issue of actively encouraging the development of our-style distinctive national dress; the issue of producing more and more diverse light industry products in which the symbolic elements of our national flag are harmonized, thereby inspiring the patriotism of the people and making patriotism permeate every aspect of daily social life; the issue of widely publishing and distributing various picture albums and magazines that introduce and promote new clothing and footwear products by yearly stages; the issue of heightening the competition drive among production units at all levels with regional monopoly indices; and the issue of continuously ensuring quality in the production of students' school uniforms, bags and footwear.

Political News Team of the Rodong Sinmun