KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti government official strongly refuted recent press and social media reports about plans by the South Korean side to postpone building a smart city in the South Saad Al-Abdullah residential city project. Official spokesperson of the Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) Ibrahim Al-Nashi stressed that the Korean news agency (Yonhap) had not released a report about postponing the project, but it rather reported that the South Korean government, represented by the land and infrastructure ministry, plans to invest $425 million in overseas smart city projects to be built by local companies as it seeks to foster smart cities and have the Korean private sector complete the funding process by the first half of 2020.

Nashi added that the authority had previously announced the schedule of housing units' distribution to citizens, noting that the units in South Sabah Al-Ahmad City are being currently distributed. Meanwhile, the PAHW's deputy director for design and planning Nasser Khoraibot denied what he described as allegations posted by an NGO on its social media accounts quoting him stating that road planning in the Mutlaa project is full of mistakes, for which he allegedly blamed the traffic department.
In other news, Public Authority for Manpower's Director Ahmad Al-Mousa received the Ambassador of Nepal to Kuwait Durga Prasad Bhandari to discuss bilateral cooperation with Kuwait, which Mousa highly commended. He noted that there are over 56,000 skilled Nepalese workers in Kuwait's private sector.

By Meshaal Al-Enezi