SEOUL - NORTH Korea on Thursday vowed a 'do-or-die' campaign to revive the sagging economy amid severe food shortages and intensified international sanctions aimed at curbing its weapons programmes.

The communist state's official media said leader Mr Kim Jong Il had visited about 100 places since December 24, when he relaunched a 1950s campaign for greater production.

'The forced march of Great Comrade Kim Jong-Il... is a great journey (showing) his endless devotion to the nation, the revolution and the people', the Korean Central Broadcasting Station said.

The radio station described the campaign as an 'all-out do-or-die battle of the entire people', according to Seoul's Yonhap news agency, which monitors the North's broadcasters.

Mr Kim's father Mr Kim Il-Sung in 1956 launched the Chollima movement, named after a mythical flying horse, to rebuild the country after the devastation of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The country's official goal is to build a 'strong, prosperous and powerful nation' by 2012, the centenary of Kim Il-Sung's birth. He died in 1994.

The North in late April also declared a 150-day campaign to raise productivity in factories, mines, power plants and farms. 'In the flames of the all-out battle, the movement of socialist competition is gearing up with vigour and energy to achieve the production goals commissioned to each unit by all means,' Radio Pyongyang said.

The North's economy contracted for nine years in succession in the 1990s after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the loss of its crucial aid. From 1999 onwards the country managed seven years of growth, but gross domestic product shrank an estimated 1.1 per cent in 2006 and 2.3 per cent in 2007.

In addition to the inefficient state-directed system, outdated facilities, a crippling energy shortage and the prolonged nuclear standoff with the West have complicated efforts for economic revival.

The United Nations this month intensified weapons-related sanctions following North Korea's May 25 nuclear test. On Wednesday Washington extended some of its own sanctions for one year. -- AFP