This year marked the start of North Korea’s five-year plan (2021-25), a road map for the country’s economic development launched at the Eighth Party Congress in January. Such plans have long been a pillar of centralized planning in communist states, outlining key economic objectives and strategies for achieving them.

Yet despite its importance, North Korea has released comparatively little about the new five-year plan. Scholars, left in the dark, must rely on a handful of available sources, which point to the following conclusions: