North Korea’s 2026 National Garment and Footwear Exhibition was at the centre of international speculation surrounding the health of the North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un.
The Leader of the isolated state, according to reports in Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), visited the trade exhibition in Pyongyang on 19 October. The reports claimed he was accompanied by his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, along with high-ranking party and government officials.
Photographs of the event were released 20 October as ‘proof of life’, after claims from a US-based Chinese dissident Wanjun Xie that Kim Jong Un had died of a brain haemorrhage in a Chinese hospital.
News from the secretive state is hard to verify and the political rumour mill is always active.
Kim is 42, overweight and thought to be a heavy smoker, making the rumour easy to believe, but in the photos released by the state news agency he is seen to be healthy and examining exhibition displays. The agency quoted him as expressing satisfaction that the products on display illustrated the “rapid and substantial” development in the country’s light industry.
On display were more than 70,000 items of clothing and 170,000 pairs of shoes apparently produced at light industry factories across the nation.
