Present there on invitation were Ambassador Choe Pyong Gwan and staff members of the DPRK embassy in Beijing.

On hand were Wu Donghe, chairman of the China-Korea Friendship Association, and officials concerned including those of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, etc.

Wu Donghe in a speech said that General Secretary Kim Jong Il's another visit to China in less than half a year fully showed what great importance the parties and governments of the two countries attach to the Sino-DPRK friendship and how close the traditional bilateral friendship is, expressing conviction that his recent visit to China would surely inject fresh vigor and vitality into the good-neighborly and friendly relations between the two countries.

He wished the fraternal Korean people greater success in their efforts to develop economy, improve the standard of people's living and open the gate to a thriving socialist nation at an early date and hoped for the successful conference of the Workers' Party of Korea.

He would work hard together with Korean comrades to make fresh contribution to further deepening the traditional friendship between the two peoples, he stressed.

Choe Pyong Gwan spoke high praises of the immortal exploits President Kim Il Sung performed by turning the DPRK into a socialist power, independent in politics, self-supporting in economy and self-reliant in national defence, and referred to the fact that the DPRK has fully displayed its might century after century under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il.

The DPRK-China friendship provided and developed by the revolutionaries of the elder generation of the two countries has grown stronger in all fields under the deep concern of the top leaders of the two countries, he noted.

He expressed the will to continue to make efforts together with the Chinese side to consolidate and develop the traditional DPRK-China friendship generation after generation.