Meng Jianzhu, state councilor and minister of Public Security of China, said: Peculiar is that the Chinese embassy in the DPRK hung at its display stand a picture of General Secretary Hu Jintao and General Secretary Kim Jong Il meeting with each other. Immortal Kimjongilia won gold prize, the top prize, at the World Horticultural Expo held in China.

Antti Sika Aho, international secretary of the Finnish Communists' League, said: This annual festival for celebrating Kim Jong Il's birthday is an eruption of Korean people's boundless reverence for him. The flowers named after the leader, a great man, have come to full bloom, and I will work hard to propagate Kimjongilia in my country.

Alejandro Cao de Benos, chairman of the Korean Friendship Association headquartered in Spain, said that the immortal flowers made him feel how deep the Korean people's trust in their leader is.

Pae Jin Gu, vice-chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), said that the festival was of weighty significance as it well showed people's deep reverence for the great man.

Ri Myong Yu, chairman of the Shizuoka Prefectural Headquarters of Chongryon, expressed the will to keep pace with the people in the homeland dynamically advancing toward future under the leadership of Kim Jong Il.