He is the deputy director of the party's Machine Building Industry Department (MBID) and plays a key part in the country's nuclear weapons program.
[3] Hong plays an important role in North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and space programs.
[4] Hong's background is in manufacture and production rather than development and research, as opposed to his superior in the MBID, Ju Kyu-chang.
[2] According to professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, Hong is "spearheading the nuclear development programme as a senior party official".
[3] North Korea expert Michael Madden calls Hong part of a last generation of "top-level officials ... who studied in the old communist world".