North Korea revised its science and technology law this year. The changes sharpen the criteria for choosing which new technologies enter production, and they add unpaid labor punishments for officials who miss targets or falsify progress reports, Daily NK has confirmed.
Daily NK obtained a copy of the amended Law on the Introduction of Scientific and Technological Achievements. It was revised through Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly Decree No. 1938 on June 10, 2025, and its structure grew from five chapters and 47 articles to six chapters and 50 articles. Chapter 5 of the 2020 version, titled “guidance and control over the introduction of scientific and technology achievements,” was replaced with a chapter on “legal responsibility.” A new sixth chapter setting the law’s effective date was added as an addendum.
The revision does not overhaul the system for introducing scientific and technology achievements. North Korea kept the older law’s basic framework, which centers on drafting and issuing plans, signing and carrying out contracts, and offering incentives. What changed is more specific: the amended law spells out which technologies count as genuine achievements, and it details who bears responsibility when a plan falls short.
The revision arrives as North Korea has strengthened legal and institutional control across society since the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic and industrial laws in particular have increasingly carved out separate legal responsibility sections that specify punishments by violation type, and the science and technology law revision fits squarely within that trend.
Selection criteria shift toward measurable results
The first notable change concerns the criteria for selecting which science and technology achievements to introduce. The old law’s Article 12, titled “principles for selecting science and technology achievements to introduce,” listed five criteria. The revised Article 12, retitled “requirements to observe in selection,” now lists six.
Two of the old criteria disappeared: “saving labor, energy and costs” and being “advanced, practical and suited to actual conditions.” In their place, the amended law newly requires that a technology “contribute to updating technical-economic indicators.” It must also “contribute to expanding the variety of products manufactured.”
The change favors measurable outcomes, such as productivity, efficiency and product diversification, over relatively abstract language like “advanced” or “practical.” Rather than simply crediting the development of a new technology, the law now appears designed to evaluate what changes that technology actually produced on the factory floor.
The amended law also changed how achievements move through the approval process. Where the old law said the central science and technology administrative guidance agency “selects” achievements, the revised version says the agency “applies for” them. Article 13, which governs how introduction plans are drafted, similarly shifted from “selected” achievements to “applied” achievements.
A similar emphasis has shown up elsewhere in North Korea’s recent economic policymaking. Daily NK reported in March that a joint directive from the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Economic Department and the Cabinet called for industrializing new energy sources and artificial intelligence. The South Pyongan Provincial People’s Committee, which received the directive, stressed that factories would need to demonstrate modernized processes and improved efficiency, not simply meet output quotas.
The upshot is that North Korean authorities are now evaluating performance by more than output alone. They are also judging how much a factory’s newly introduced technology improved its production structure.
Missed quotas and false reports now carry direct punishment
The most striking change in this revision involves legal responsibility. The old law compressed everything into a single Article 47. It stated only that officials and citizens whose violations caused serious consequences would face administrative or criminal responsibility “according to the circumstances,” offering little guidance on which acts led to which punishments.
The revised law splits this into four separate articles. Article 46 covers warnings and severe warnings, Article 47 covers unpaid labor, Article 48 covers demotion, dismissal or removal, and Article 49 covers criminal responsibility.
Article 46 lists warning-level offenses. These include failing to register an introduction plan and failing to secure the conditions, materials or funding a plan requires in a timely manner. They also include failing to properly confirm and evaluate how much of a plan was carried out, failing to implement incentive measures as designated, and violating the rules for distributing and using profits. Officials face a severe warning if the circumstances are serious.
Article 47 specifies grounds for unpaid labor punishment of up to three months. These include failing to draft an introduction plan, or drafting one only for form’s sake, and falling short of a plan’s targets. They also include falsely reporting a plan’s completion rate and arbitrarily altering a technical task document or design in ways that cause accidents. Introducing unreviewed research results that disrupt production or management is another ground for punishment. Punishment can exceed three months if circumstances are serious.
In effect, falling short of a plan, filing a false report or presenting flawed, unverified designs are no longer treated as institutional failures. They now translate directly into punishment for the individual official responsible.
The pattern echoes recent amendments to other economic laws. North Korea’s 2025 revision of the Labor Remuneration Law split a single punishment article into three tiers: warnings and severe warnings, unpaid labor and labor training, and demotion, dismissal or removal. The same year’s revision of the Fisheries Law carved “legal responsibility” into its own chapter and sharply raised fines for some violations. The Road Traffic Law likewise spelled out specific penalties, including vehicle impoundment and confiscation, by violation type.
North Korea leaned on law as a tool of social control through the COVID-19 period. It now appears to be extending that approach to economic management, spelling out in legal text not just what is prohibited but who faces what level of punishment for which outcome. At a joint party, state and military meeting in July, North Korean authorities called for reinforcing legal order across state affairs under the banner of “robust order” and “strict legal discipline.”
Daily NK reported in June that the party’s Central Organization and Guidance Department, the body responsible for internal oversight and personnel control, was inspecting factories, enterprises and farms for inflated production figures and manipulated plan completion rates. The inspections came as the department reviewed implementation of Ninth Party Congress decisions. Inspection teams reportedly cross-checked ledger records at individual worksites against the figures those sites had reported to party organizations.
That inspection cannot be tied directly to the science and technology law. But it points to authorities already scrutinizing a problem functionally similar to the false reporting the amended law now punishes as a distinct offense.
Failures in technology and equipment management have already led to real punishment of officials. Reports emerged last year that the Pyongsan uranium refining plant in North Hwanghae province had discharged wastewater. A central investigation team then examined the facility’s management and compliance with environmental standards. The plant’s technical department chief, equipment department chief and chemistry laboratory chief were reportedly dismissed, and some received three months of disciplinary labor. The plant subsequently redesigned its production facilities, including new wastewater treatment systems.
That case cannot be confirmed as a direct application of the science and technology law either. But it illustrates the same North Korean management pattern reflected in this revision: technology and equipment failures lead to individual punishment, followed by demands for renewed technical upgrades.
A push to convert science and technology into real power
Leader Kim Jong Un’s emphasis on science and technology underlies this sharper approach to evaluating achievements and assigning responsibility.
Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party’s official newspaper, described science and technology on May 7 as “the locomotive driving socialist construction” and “the main development engine of the national economy.” The description came in an editorial urging fulfillment of Ninth Party Congress decisions. The editorial stressed a social atmosphere of mastering science and technology to build a “rich nation, strong military.” It identified raising the national economy’s self-reliance and modernization, along with qualitative growth in production, as the basic direction for science and technology work during the new five-year plan period.
The newly added emphasis on “updating technical-economic indicators” and “expanding product variety” tracks that policy direction. The intent appears to be converting science and technology from research achieved at institutes and universities into tangible gains at actual factories and enterprises.
Kim Jong-sun, a senior research fellow at South Korea’s state-run Science and Technology Policy Institute, told Daily NK that updating technical-economic indicators appears meant to maintain and strengthen the state’s capacity to plan and manage economic development. On the push to expand product variety, Kim said the provision “primarily emphasizes expanding science and technology achievements in the agricultural and livestock sectors.” He added that it could also reflect a broader push toward demand-driven innovation, aimed at producing goods suited to everyday needs.
It is also worth noting that Kim Jong Un has personally overseen major weapons tests at defense science institutions and munitions factories this year, repeatedly ordering technical upgrades to weapons systems. The revised law itself governs science and technology introduction only in the civilian economy and industry. Still, North Korea under Kim Jong Un treats science and technology as a core national capability that underpins both economic modernization and military buildup.
Ultimately, what the Kim Jong Un government wants is not the slogan “science and technology power” itself, but the actual conversion of science and technology into productivity, military strength and national competitiveness. That intent appears reflected in a revision that sharpens the criteria for achievement and holds officials accountable for missed targets and false reporting.
The key question is whether the conditions for carrying out the law will keep pace with its ambitions. Article 46 also imposes a warning for failing to properly secure the conditions a plan requires, or for failing to plan materials and funding in a timely manner. That means senior officials responsible for guaranteeing conditions, not only field managers, could in principle face punishment as well.
That is a meaningful shift. A North Korean enterprise’s failure to meet its plan is not always the result of negligence by managers on site. Without a stable supply of electricity and raw materials, or without the equipment, parts and technical personnel a plan requires, introducing a new technology will not necessarily raise productivity.
The open question is whether enforcement in practice will hold higher-level agencies to that same structural responsibility. If technical-economic indicators and plan completion rates are emphasized without ensuring adequate equipment, materials and personnel, the law risks becoming pressure on field officials to meet quotas rather than a spur to genuine innovation. Punishing both missed targets and false reporting at once could leave managers caught between plans they cannot realistically meet and the penalty for reporting that honestly.
Going forward, several questions remain open, and officials have not answered them publicly. What procedures and standards will actually determine technical-economic indicators and plan completion rates? Who will verify those achievements, and by what process? And will legal responsibility genuinely extend to higher-level agencies that fail to guarantee materials, funding and other conditions?
North Korea’s ambition to make science and technology a core driver of both its economy and its military power is becoming increasingly clear. But experts caution that this legislative push toward becoming a “science and technology power” could backfire. If it prioritizes targets and punishment over creating conditions for real innovation, it risks becoming just another tightening of planning discipline.
Kim, the South Korean researcher, predicted that North Korea will likely keep emphasizing the application of science and technology to production sites and the creation of concrete results. But he also cited the constraints North Korea faces in pursuing isolated innovation. The state-led push, he said, “may produce results in some sectors, but is likely to yield only limited achievements overall.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
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