North Korea convened a congress of a major youth group in Pyongyang for the first time in five years earlier this week, its state media said Tuesday.

The ninth Congress of the Korean Children's Union opened in the capital the previous day amid "high enthusiasm of all the participants for further strengthening the group into a children's revolutionary organization" of the ruling Workers' Party, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The regime's leader Kim Jong-un appears not to have attended the opening ceremony of the congress, as he presided over a key party meeting the same day to discuss the country's policy direction for next year.

The KCU, formed in 1946, is a youth organization composed of children aged around 7 to 13. Its members are known for wearing red neckerchiefs.

The latest KCU meeting marks the third of its kind since Kim took power in 2011. Kim took part in both the seventh Congress in 2013 and the eighth in June 2017. (Yonhap)