The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday issued a detailed report on the successful completion of 10 000 flats in the Songsin and Songhwa area of Pyongyang.

According to the report, the Party Central Committee made a bold decision to launch the project for building 50 000 flats in Pyongyang despite the worst situation, a formidable work in common practice. It set forth the project as an important goal of the new five-year plan at the Eighth Party Congress and then unfolded a grand construction operation for building 10 000 flats in the Songsin and Songhwa area as the first step.

After mapping out a grand plan for building 10 000 modern flats in Pyongyang every year, General Secretary Kim Jong Un, at the Second Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Party Central Committee, took a substantial and innovative measure to complete the construction of 10 000 flats in the Songsin and Songhwa area in 2021 without fail.

He gave an order in the name of the president of the State Affairs of the DPRK on completing the 50 000-flat construction in the capital city at the highest level through a coordinated army-people operation. And he personally attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the Songsin and Songhwa area housing project at which he made a meaningful speech. He guided the capital city construction theatre to be a main offensive front, symbolic of a new period of upsurge and great turn in socialist construction.

The housing construction in the Songsin and Songhwa area was a grand campaign of creation beyond imagination in terms of architectural style and content and scale of project as it required completing in just one year more than 160 blocks of skyscraping and high-rise apartment houses, public buildings and service amenities with a total floor space of one million and hundreds of thousands of square metres in an area covering 56 hectares.

A three-dimensional construction drive was launched all at once to finish the project within the time and at the level set by the Party.

Units of the People's Army involved in the project successfully concluded in a little over three months the earth digging, concrete tamping for foundations and framework building of dwelling houses.

Servicepersons in charge of the construction of 80-storey skyscraper fully displayed the strenuous offensive spirit peculiar to the indomitable revolutionary army.

The framework construction of the skyscraper was completed in 80 days to make a breakthrough in the grand construction project.

Every unit of the People's Army removed more than 1 000 cubic metres of earth per day on an average and reduced the time of form assembly and concrete tamping from 24 and 30 hours to 6 and 10 hours, finishing the framework construction of dwelling houses ahead of schedule.

The exterior wall plastering and tile-fixing, estimated to take more than two months, were completed in a week.

The soldier-builders increased the speed of construction by actively introducing dozens of inventions and technical innovation proposals.

Civilian construction units, too, waged a campaign for creating a new spirit of the times and a new construction speed.

Technicians and skilled workers introduced a method of building decorative structure with arched prefabricated elements at one try to shorten the period of construction by tens of days. They also realized the three-dimensional modeling of sections assigned to them to ensure the speed and scientific accuracy in calculation of the work load and direction.

They guaranteed the quality of construction while making a great contribution to the economic life of the country by introducing the labour- and material-saving concrete tamping with movable frames, the method of using lighter hollow blocks and good ideas for saving foam laggings.

Thanks to the devoted efforts of the soldier- and civilian-builders, the vast framework construction of dwelling houses was completed in a little over three months along with the road construction, power transmission line building, substructure construction and land levelling for a new street to take its magnificent shape.

The skyscraper, high-rise apartment buildings and facilities for education, public health and welfare service amenities and others laid out along the broad avenue go well with each other and also with overhead bridges and decorative structures. As a result, a new street of monumental value has emerged with high-level application of formative art, interconnectivity and practicality to further spruce up Pyongyang as befits the great capital city encapsulating the people-first principle.

Officials and working people across the country made joint innovations for the completion of the project.

Designers of various units including the Paektusan Institute of Architecture, the Urban Planning Institute in Pyongyang and Pyongyang University of Architecture created distinctive model and standard designs and completed a large a number of designs in the shortest period of time to keep designing ahead of building.

Workers of the Sangwon Cement Complex, the Chollima Steel Complex, the Chollima Tile Factory, the Narae Ceramic Factory and other relevant units supplied the building materials for the project on a priority basis.

Those in the railway transport sector ensured the transport of the materials to the construction site as planned.

Soldier- and civilian-builders, though busy with a 24-7 campaign, gave sincere support to the units lagging behind, and they also sincerely helped farms nearby. Wives of officers helped their husbands and soldiers with all dedication while displaying warm patriotism and tough personality. All these greatly impressed the people.

Stories about couples, father and son, brothers and sisters working together in the same site and other stories about the good deeds done by known and unknown volunteers, who had helped the builders after finishing their daily work, eloquently showed the heroic fighting spirit, great devotion and ardent patriotism of our people devotedly upholding the intention of the Party Central Committee.

Songhwa Street, inaugurated with splendour ahead of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung, is the first entity guaranteeing the successful implementation of the five-year plan for the capital city construction advanced at the Eighth Party Congress, and it is a proud monumental edifice in the great era of Kim Jong Un in which socialist civilization is created by our own efforts, wisdom and struggle.