North Korean leader Kim Jong Un approved interior designs last year for the country’s “first” modern general hospital, state media has revealed, a rare sign of activity on the stalled project two and a half years after it was supposed to be complete.

Kim approved department signage and information board designs for the Pyongyang General Hospital in late June 2022, according to a state TV report on this month's national industrial design expo. The approval came around the time of a nationwide COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown.