The Cairo-based Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) has received an exemption from international sanctions prohibiting joint ventures in North Korea, the company’s chairman Naguib Sawiris said in a tweet on Friday, allowing them to continue ownership of the DPRK’s Koryolink mobile network.

“Great news for me and Orascom Investment,” Sawiris wrote in English, adding that the “United Nations just approved the exemption for Koryolink! Our mobile phone operation in North Korea.”

UNSC Resolution 2375, passed in September last year, required all companies operating joint ventures with North Korean partners – including Orascom’s Koryolink – to cease operations by early January or receive