Kim Jong-un celebrates completion of Pyongyang housing project with South Korean-style internet cafe
Published: 16 Apr. 2025, 15:03
Updated: 16 Apr. 2025, 16:53
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- LIM JEONG-WON
- [email protected]
Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI
![North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, third from right, attends a ceremony marking the completion of the third-stage section of the Hwasong new town in Pyongyang on April 15. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/04/16/453d8510-fd9c-4055-ad57-791154801d44.jpg)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, third from right, attends a ceremony marking the completion of the third-stage section of the Hwasong new town in Pyongyang on April 15. [YONHAP]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a ceremony to mark the completion of 10,000 homes in the third phase of a large-scale housing development project in Pyongyang's Hwasong area on Wednesday.
Kim was accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju-ae, Workers' Party Secretary Kim Tok-hun and Premier Pak Thae-song, according to North Korean state media.
During the visit, Kim expressed regret to workers and elderly residents, reportedly saying, “I’m sorry it took so long to provide such modern homes.”
Kim Tok-hun said during the ceremony, “This is the birth of a new urban area that presents a stark contrast between yesterday’s Pyongyang and today’s modernized Pyongyang.”
The newly completed Hwasong housing area is part of a broader plan announced at the Eighth Party Congress in 2021 to build 50,000 new homes in Pyongyang over five years, or 10,000 annually.
Construction began with the Songsin and Songhwa areas in 2021, followed by Hwasong Street in 2023 and Rimhung Street in 2024. The third phase began in February last year and was completed in just over a year, while the fourth phase is currently underway.
![North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looks around a “computer game room” facility similar to South Korean PC-bangs on April 3. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/04/16/bd28d82e-ce56-4af1-996e-591ced4f5cc9.jpg)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looks around a “computer game room” facility similar to South Korean PC-bangs on April 3. [NEWS1]
Kim has frequently visited the Hwasong site, underscoring its symbolic importance.
Earlier this month, state media revealed the opening in the area of a “computer game room” similar to a South Korean internet cafe, or PC bang. Kim dubbed the facility a "service base" and instructed officials to pay special attention to its operations.
The facility reportedly has 300 seats, with computer chairs on both sides and blue lights on the walls and ceilings. Photos of Kim Jong-un looking around the space were released by North Korean state media.
A Unification Ministry official said North Korea hoped Kim Jong-un's visit to the facility, accompanied by his daughter for the first time in three months, would "generate a positive response from young North Koreans."
However, observers have questioned the facility's practical utility, given that ordinary North Koreans are forbidden access to the global internet and can only use the state-monitored intranet.
The Unification Ministry official added that since such internet cafes are a uniquely South Korean phenomenon, "there are aspects of the facility that clearly conflict with the North Korean authorities' emphasis on 'rejecting reactionary ideology and culture.'"
North Korea has cracked down on the influx of foreign culture to prevent the youth from ideologically going soft and potentially threatening the regime's stability.
Singaporean data analysis agency DataReportal stated in its “Digital 2024 Global Report” that as of last year, more than 99.9 percent of North Korea’s population of 26.2 million were not connected to the Internet, and that North Korea had the lowest Internet connection rate among the countries surveyed, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).
"North Korea is very far from the internet world as we think of it — you could think of it as a computer use system that allows for limited searches and document work on a portal that they built themselves," said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU). “Kim’s on-site visit is a move to emphasize and demonstrate that computers have been introduced into the information and education systems.”
BY LIM JEONG-WON, BAE JAE-SUNG [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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