The Korean people made big successes while meeting all sorts of challenges with the might of single-minded unity of the leader, the party and the masses under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il last year, he noted, and continued:

Kim Jong Il proposed launching the 150-day and the 100-day campaigns successively and led them, working new miracles one after another in the economic field of the DPRK. He expressed belief that the Korean people would bring about a decisive turn in improving the people's standard of living by channeling efforts to light industry and agriculture and make greater success in building a thriving socialist nation set forth in the joint New Year editorial for this year.

He hoped that the Korean people would achieve greater success in the work to reunify the country independently and peacefully and ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula this year.

The DPRK's foreign policy is always just as it has developed the relations of good-neighborliness and friendship with other countries under the uplifted banner of independence, peace and friendship, he stressed.