Kim Jong Un is looking to one of North Korea's more experienced technocrats — who once narrowly escaped being purged — to revive the economy in the face of punishing international sanctions.

Kim this month named Prime Minister Pak Pong Ju, 77, to the five-man standing committee of the ruling Workers' Party, making him the highest-ranking official to lead a new five-year economic plan. The regime's leader announced the blueprint at the first full party congress in 36 years, held as he seeks to tighten his grip on power.

Pak has had a rocky past, sacked as premier by Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, about a decade ago and demoted to supervisor of a chemical factory. His policy of encouraging free enterprise while increasing wages and consumer prices to help the country cope with the rise of unofficial markets had unnerved die-hard socialists.