Mass ceremony held for the groundbreaking of the new housing drive -- image via the Korean Central News Agency
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has launched a significant housing project that will see the building 10,000 flats in the Hwasong area of Pyongyang. This is the fourth stage of a larger five-year plan to construct 50,000 apartments in the city. This housing plan was decided on at the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea and aims to "turn Pyongyang into a wonderful world-class city, in which the people-first principle is thoroughly applied". All housing in the DPRK, including these new apartments, is entirely rent free.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the project took place on February 16 with Kim Jong Un, Pak Thae Song, premier of the Cabinet of the DPRK, and other senior Party, government and military officials, officials of the Cabinet, armed forces organs, ministries, national agencies and Pyongyang and military and civilian builders attending the event. The project is seen as a crucial step in improving the living conditions of the people and showcasing the country's socialist development.
Speaking at the event Kim Jong Un said "Housing construction in Pyongyang should continue until the Party’s plan is turned into reality to provide its citizens with perfect conditions for leading a civilized and happy life without any inconvenience."
"We are engaged in the struggle to move from a revolution to a more gigantic one and from a stage of development to a higher level of transformation. In the course of this struggle, construction is gaining an extraordinary significance and power.
Construction is precisely investment in, and pioneering of, the future.
The revolution in construction is the essential prerequisite for our Party’s development strategy for bringing about epochal changes on this land, and the implementation of all important policies of the Party and the state is, without exception, accompanied by construction, regardless of sectors, units and regions.
It can be said that the historic cause for comprehensive rejuvenation of our state and improvement of the people’s well-being begins with construction, moves ahead with construction and comes to accomplishment with successful construction.
It would be no exaggeration to say that construction, among others, intuitively expresses our politics, helps us get nearer to attainment of our ideals of civilization and prosperity, and rapidly increases the wealth of our country."
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