Pyongyang, North Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fired his vice premier, whom he compared to a goat, and railed against "incompetent" officials in a rare public attack on against apparatchiks.

Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked "on the spot", the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked "irresponsible, rude, and incompetent leading officials."

"Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late," Kim reportedly said, adding: "He is ineligible for an important duty."

"Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat – an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process," the North Korean leader railed. "After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat."

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Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.

Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for "too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility, and passiveness."

And he urged a quick turnaround in the "centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state."

Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in South Hamgyong Province in the country's frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching gray hats.

Kim's public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim's uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.

The North Korean leader is "using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials," he told AFP.

Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.

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Last month, Kim vowed to root out "evil" at a major meeting of Pyongyang's top brass.

State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent "deviations" in discipline – a euphemism for corruption.