North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly been elected the general secretary of the ruling Workers' Party at the party's first congress in nearly five years.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) reported on Monday that the party endorsed Kim as the general secretary the previous day during the ongoing eighth congress.

The endorsement comes a day after the North's revision of party rules to reinstate the secretariat system that was scrapped in the previous party congress in 2016.

Kim's powerful younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who had been an alternate member of the party's political bureau, was not on the list.