North Korea has stepped up efforts to produce and distribute electricity more efficiently, state media said Tuesday, amid a chronic power shortage and challenges in meeting the country's five-year economic goals.

Tongil Voice, a North Korean propaganda radio broadcast, said that the power transmission and distribution department in South Hamgyong Province has successfully established a database to introduce a geographic information system for improving efficiency in the province at the end of last month.

"The power transmission and distribution department in South Hamgyong Province is currently using the plan created using the database to prepare the necessary technology required in restructuring distribution lines efficiently within the province," it said.

The state-run Radio Pyongyang also said that thermal power plants across the country are putting all-out efforts to increase power production.

North Korean workers in the hydroelectric field achieved 102.1 percent of their goals in April and are pushing ahead to produce more electricity through the scientific management of water and other facilities, it added.

North Korea is known to be suffering from a chronic power shortage and pushing to build hydropower generation plants to make up for the shortfalls.

At the eighth congress of the ruling Workers' Party in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un admitted the failure to meet the country's previous five-year development goals and put forward a new five-year plan focusing on self-reliance. (Yonhap)