Present there on invitation were Kang Nung Su, vice-premier, Kim Ki Ryong, editor-in-chief of Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong Suk, chairwoman of the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and other officials concerned.

Staff members of the Chinese embassy were on hand.

Liu Hongcai in his speech said that 2010 was the significant year during which the two parties, two countries and two peoples of China and the DPRK have shown their firm will to carry forward and develop the relations of traditional friendship and cooperation.

Stressing that the Korean people have achieved great successes in their efforts to develop the economy and improve the standard of people's living under the leadership of Kim Jong Il and the Workers' Party of Korea, he wholeheartedly wished the Korean people greater successes in their work for building a thriving nation in the New Year.

He said that the Chinese people would make more beautiful future of the China-DPRK relations in close cooperation with the Korean comrades in the New Year, too.

Kang Nung Su noted in his speech that an epoch-making event occurred in the development of the DPRK-China friendship relations and many successes achieved in all aspects in 2010.

He expressed hope that in the New Year, too, the Chinese people would achieve successes in building of comprehensively well-off socialist society based on the scientific outlook on development under the leadership of the Communist Party of China with Hu Jintao as general secretary.

We will join hands with the Chinese comrades and make steady efforts to boost the traditional relations at a new high level, he stressed.