North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sought to reassert his personal oversight of the country’s “backward” rural economy on Monday, speaking at a meeting that state media called an “epochal milestone for regional economic development.” 

The leader’s remarks on new fish farm plans reaffirm an ongoing effort to wrangle back central economic control and shift away from a policy that gave more oversight to local officials.

Kim made the statement at a special “consultative meeting” on fishery construction in an air-conditioned tent on a beach in Sinpho on Monday, according to the Korean Central News Agency(KCNA), where he ordered