North Korea holds an expanded plenary meeting of its Cabinet via video link, April 20. Yonhap

North Korea held a Cabinet meeting to assess its economic performance for the first three months of the year and urged officials to make utmost efforts to achieve their goals "at all costs," state media reported Thursday.

At the expanded plenary meeting of the Cabinet held via video link the previous day, Vice Premier Pak Jong-gun made a report analyzing the country's economic weaknesses and flaws that dragged down the country's performance for the first quarter, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

During the session, Pak called on officials to "wage a stronger battle against undesirable phenomena, including formalism and self-protectionism, in the process of implementing economic policies."

"The meeting stressed that all officials should wage a bold battle to implement the national economic plan in the first half of the year at all costs, keeping in mind that the national economic plan is an order from the party and the law of our nation," the KCNA said.

During the North's eighth Workers' Party congress in January last year, its leader Kim Jong-un admitted that his five-year economic plan failed to meet its target and unveiled a new one focusing on self-reliance amid crippling global sanctions and a protracted border closure due to COVID-19. (Yonhap)