Attending it were Chief Vice-Chairman Ho Jong Man and vice-chairmen of the Chongryon Central Standing Committee, the chairman of the Central Audit Committee of Chongryon, advisors of the Chongryon Central Standing Committee, the director of the Research Institute on History of Korean Residents in Japan, directors of the Chongryon Central Standing Committee, leading officials of central organizations and businesses under Chongryon, chairmen of Chongryon headquarters in Kanto area and Korean businessmen of commerce.

Present on invitation were personages of political, economic, the press, social and cultural circles in Japan and ambassadors and staff members of embassies of different countries, representatives of international organizations and correspondents to Japan.

Ho Jong Man said at the reception that Kim Jong Il has energetically provided field guidance to different units of the DPRK, including major factories and farms, from the outset of the year, arousing all the people to a new great revolutionary surge.

The people in the homeland are working fresh miracles and innovations in all domains of the economic construction in the new year in the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, full of optimism and firm faith that they are sure to win as they are guided by Kim Jong Il, he stressed.

The DPRK has achieved a great victory in the standoff with the U.S. thanks to Kim Jong Il's outstanding Songun leadership and superb diplomatic stratagem, he noted, demanding that the Japanese authorities make a political decision to settle the past of Japan according to the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and put the DPRK-Japan relations on a normal track, squarely seeing the trend of the times.