Kim Jong Un will be keeping North Korea watchers busy on New Year’s Day, when he is expected to give his annual address laying out the country’s top priorities for the year ahead.

The speech, which is normally broadcast on North Korea’s state-run television network, is often the best gauge of what the North Korean leadership is focused on and what tone it will take in its dealings with the outside world.

For 2019, it will be parsed carefully for clues about Kim’s thinking on denuclearisation talks with Washington and a second summit with President Donald Trump, relations with South Korea and Pyongyang’s efforts to get out from under international sanctions as it tries to build up its domestic economy.

In his first televised speech, at a military parade in 2012, Kim vowed the nation would never again have to tighten its belts, a reference to the economic hardships it has faced, including a disastrous famine in the 1990s.

While they remain isolated and unable to travel or experience foreign media freely, North Koreans are aware of the yawning prosperity gap between themselves, South Korea and China.

Kim has tried to address that by initiating infrastructure projects in major cities, building up the capital and allowing if not overtly supporting the spread of the market economy. What’s not clear is how far he is willing to go with the kind of fundamental, systemic reforms needed to really ensure sustainable growth.

North Korea has hinted it wants to join the World Trade Organization and be more a part of the global economic community. But that would also require some risky moves like increased transparency and commitment to global rules and norms. A big question is how much control Kim is willing to relinquish in exchange for prosperity.

North Korea is entering the fourth year of a five-year economic plan that Kim announced with great fanfare at a rare congress of his ruling party in 2016. If precedent is any indication, he will go into some detail outlining, sector by sector, the country’s successes so far and emphasising what remains to be done. This part of the speech is usually couched in deliberately vague, broad or aspirational language and is directed at the domestic party leadership.

Kim never agreed to unilaterally throw away his hard-won nuclear arsenal, which he maintains is a necessary deterrent to the threat of an attack by the United States. The North’s moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches also isn’t part of the summit agreement and there is no explicit promise in the Singapore joint statement that the North won’t continue producing or developing its missiles.