Foreign Property News | Posted by Shwe Zin Win
A Seoul-backed international organisation of city governments and ICT institutions has revealed plans to include North Korea in its network, GovInsider reported.
The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organisation (WeGO) will build smart cities in the Hermit Kingdom, according to Lee Kyong-yul, the organisation’s secretary general.
“We would like to work together with North Korean cities,” Lee told GovInsider. “In case they are not well-developed, we would like to help them to be smart.”
Pyongyang will be joining Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington DC in an inaugural smart city network that could be launched by September 2019. A forum will be provided for mayors of the foregoing cities to lay the groundwork for the so-called North East Asian Smart City network.
Peace talks between Pyongyang and Seoul this year served as a catalyst for the initiative. Partly funded by the Seoul city government, with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon as president, WeGO aims to be the “UN for smart cities,” said Lee, who had worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for three decades.
WeGO aims to offer capacity building, training programmes and feasibility studies to North Korean officials and civilians.
Ref: Property Report
