Participants in an ongoing gathering of North Korea's ruling party officials have acknowledged "shortcomings" in implementing party tasks and pledged to improve them, Pyongyang's state media reported Monday.

The 2nd Conference of Secretaries of Primary Committees of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the first since late 2016, opened Saturday, as the North appears intent to tighten discipline and unity among party ranks amid economic woes aggravated by sanctions and pandemic-driven restrictions.

"Speakers reflected on the fact that they failed to do the ideological and political work positively and to fulfill the functions and role of primary Party committees satisfactorily," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said of Sunday's discussions during the second day of the conference.

"They also referred to the fact that they failed to make guidance based on policies and the political guidance run through Party leadership of economic work," it added.

In his opening remarks Saturday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un addressed the "serious deviations of not meeting the requirement of the developing reality" despite the growth of many primary organizations of the party, according to the KCNA.

The conference reviews the past five years of work of the primary party organizations. Its inaugural meeting was held in December 2016. (Yonhap)