Kim Jong Il, supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), made an inspection to Manpho Unhwa Factory before an upcoming conference of the ruling party, the official news agency KCNA reported on Sunday.

Kim, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and chairman of the country's National Defence Commission, expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the workers of the factory modernized it on the basis of the latest technology and brought about a dramatic turn in the production in a short span of time, the KCNA reported.

He highly praised them for having completed the difficult and complicated project for technological updating requiring high technology.

He also praised the factory for updating the production processes through close creative cooperation with Kim Chaek University of Technology and completing a Korean-style integrated automation system on this basis.

He expressed the hope that the workers of the factory would "creditably perform the role of the vanguard and shock brigade" in the struggle to "push back the frontiers of latest science and technology in the future," too.

Recently, Kim has been paying inspections in Jagang Province. He had inspected the March 5 Youth Mine, said the KCNA on Saturday.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the WPK decided in June that a WPK conference would be held in early September to make major decisions on high-level appointments. The conference would be the first of its kind in 44 years.