South Korea's Hanwha Group has partially resumed a 13 trillion-won (US$9.8 billion) city development project in Iraq, which has been suspended for over a year due to unpaid construction costs, the government said Monday. A ceremony to mark the group's resumption of the Bismayah New City project in Iraq was held in the Middle Eastern country, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. A government task force led by Land Minister Park Sang-woo attended the event in person. Haider Muhammed Makkiya, head of the Iraqi National Investment Commission (NIC), the contracting authority of the project, also attended the ceremony. First commissioned in 2012, the Bismayah New City project involves the construction of 100,000 housing units and various social infrastructure facilities over a 5.5 million square-meter site near Baghdad. Due to financial difficulties on the Iraqi side, the project, however, faced challenges, with Hanwha having suspended construction in October 2022. Currently, only m inimal staff remain on-site for maintenance. Since January of last year, Hanwha has engaged in negotiations with the NIC for the resumption of the project. According to officials, Hanwha received $230 million out of the outstanding $629 million in December of last year. Officials noted that the resumption entails completing the unfinished portions of the project before transitioning to concluding the existing contract, and that it does not signify a complete project resumption. A Hanwha official stated, "Full resumption of the project can be discussed only after receiving the remaining outstanding payments." Source: Yonhap News Agency