By Joyce Lee<\/p>\n
SEOUL, Feb 17 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un marked the completion of 10,000 new houses built in \u200cPyongyang, state media KCNA said on Tuesday, as the country prepares \u200cto hold a key party congress.<\/p>\n
Kim has been touring construction sites and touting project progress \u200bahead of this month’s Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, the country’s biggest political gathering that reviews performance, sets new policy goals and can bring leadership change.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Kim oversaw the completion ceremony for 10,000 houses in Hwasong \u200cDistrict, Pyongyang, which achieved the \u2060goal of 50,000 new houses in the metropolitan area set during the Eighth Congress five years ago, according to \u2060state broadcaster KCNA.<\/p>\n
“Based on the transformational achievements… during the Eighth period, the Ninth Congress of the party will set a grander goal of restoration and creation,” \u200bKim said, \u200baccording to KCNA.<\/p>\n
Kim’s daughter Ju Ae \u200bwas shown at her father’s \u200cside at the completion ceremony, hugging and congratulating the residents of the new estate. There has been increasing speculation among analysts and from South Korea’s spy agency that Kim is grooming the teenager to succeed him.<\/p>\n
As part of their tour of the housing project, North Korean state TV showed Kim \u200cand Ju Ae also visiting an arcade \u200bgame centre that looked similar to an internet \u200bcafe, a musical instrument shop \u200band an animal hospital where they petted a puppy.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, \u200cKCNA said those participating in the \u200bupcoming party congress arrived \u200bin Pyongyang on Monday.<\/p>\n
In the past two instances in 2016 and 2021, the Congress began three to four days after representatives arrived \u200bin Pyongyang, according to \u200cHong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification \u200bin Seoul.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Joyce Lee and Sebin Choi; Editing by Lisa \u200bShumaker, Ed Davies and Kate Mayberry)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joyce Lee SEOUL, Feb 17 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un marked the completion of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11035,11034,11037,11036,178,141,11033,2175,177,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-15017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pyongyang","8":"tag-completion","9":"tag-completion-ceremony","10":"tag-construction-sites","11":"tag-housing-project","12":"tag-kcna","13":"tag-kim-jong-un","14":"tag-ninth-congress","15":"tag-north-korean","16":"tag-north-korean-leader","17":"tag-pyongyang"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}