PYONGYANG – Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), inspected the country's defense industry and learned about production at major munitions factories from Wednesday to Friday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday.

Kim, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, called a powerful artillery force "the core for deterring and fighting war", said the report.

He stressed that the achievements in the modernization of the country's national defense capabilities mean "a significant change in the composition and means of our armed forces and their plan for countering a war," it added.

The DPRK leader laid out tasks for the factories' production and management, calling for steady efforts to expand production capacity and modernize technical processes, raise the level of artificial intelligence in offensive and defensive combat weapon systems, and further improve the "armor and automation of artillery weapons," the KCNA report said.