North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened up about the country’s overwhelming “poverty” and failing economy in a speech on Friday, while declaring that his new rural development project has taken a first step toward righting his past neglect of the majority of the population.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Saturday published the lengthy speech Kim delivered at the opening of three small factories in Songchon near the capital, in which he went into fine detail about past policy failures and his loose road map for a different path forward. 

He specifically framed this as an effort to