President Kim Il Sung visited the then Ragwon Machine Factory in June 1958.

Kim Il Sung dropped in at every workshop and had talks with workers. Then he sat on a plain chair in a shady garden and said to officials and the workers that the Presidium of the Party Central Committee had seriously discussed three times on producing excavators because it presented itself as a very important one in the country. He said that the country would need 100 excavators the next year, but there was no choice but to produce those excavators by the workers’ own efforts as it was impossible to import them.

When Kim Il Sung spoke his inmost thought frankly to them, the workers told him that they would possibly and surely produce excavators.

Satisfied by their answer, Kim Il Sung encouraged them to produce excavators boldly by saying that if all sectors of the national economy develop at the speed of Chollima (a legendary horse which runs 1 000 ri a day), the machine industry sector should develop at the speed of Mallima (a legendary horse which runs 10 000 ri a day), thus bringing about another great upsurge.

True to his call, the workers of the factory produced excavators by their own efforts.