Pyongyang, September 9 (KCNA) -- The DPRK government gave a banquet at the People's Palace of Culture on Friday, the 63rd birthday of the DPRK.

Present there were senior party and state officials, chairperson of a friendly party, deputies to the Supreme People's Assembly, officials of the party, armed forces and power bodies, social organizations, ministries and national institutions, servicepersons of the Korean People's Army and the Korean People's Internal Security Forces, former unconverted long-term prisoners who are pro-reunification patriotic fighters, officials in the fields of science, education, culture and arts, public health and media, heroes and heroines and persons of distinguished service.

The congratulatory group of Koreans in Japan to celebrate the 63rd birthday of the DPRK, overseas compatriots and the chief of the Pyongyang mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front were also present.

Present there on invitation were diplomatic envoys of different countries, members of the military attaches corps and representatives of international organizations here and foreign guests.

Kim Yong Nam, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the C.C., the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, made a speech at the banquet.

President Kim Il Sung's founding of the DPRK marked a historic event of weighty significance in carving out the destines of the country and the people and accomplishing the revolutionary cause of Juche, he said, and went on:

The path covered by the DPRK for more than six decades represents a shining history of creation and construction in which the Korean people built and developed the Korean-style socialist state centered on the popular masses, successfully exploring the untrodden path, and a glorious history of heroic struggle and victory in which they have defended the sovereignty and dignity of the country and the nation, holding the President and General Secretary Kim Jong Il.

Kim Il Sung's Korea is greeting a great heyday of building a thriving nation under the Songun leadership of Kim Jong Il.

A new era of making a leap forward was ushered in the struggle for the economic development of the country and the improvement of the standard of the people's living and marvelous events took place one after another to realize the cherished desire and ideals of the Korean people.

The army and the people of the DPRK will make a leap forward on all fronts of socialist construction full of faith and optimism and glorify 2012, the centenary of birth of the President, as the greatest revolutionary holiday of Kim Il Sung's nation and the great holiday of mankind, he concluded.