Pyongyang, December 20 (KCNA) -- Leader Kim Jong Il dedicated himself to the happiness of the people all his life.

He had a noble wish.

It was to bring the greatest happiness and honor to the people even if he had plucked a star from the sky and grown flowers even on a rock.

It was his ardent desire to build a strong, highly-civilized and prosperous country without fail and hand it down to the generations to come.

This year, too, he set about his journey for the wellbeing of the people with the song "Path of Victory." He tirelessly made trips for field guidance to worksites alive with the drive for a great surge even in February in the wake of his journey in snowbound January.

He visited every nook and corner of the country, warming himself up as if he had not felt at all the biting cold of winter.

Wherever he went, he looked full of energy, his face beaming with a smile.

He made journeys to factories and farms to mix with people despite sweltering mid-summer heat. At a time when the situation was so tense that a war might break out any moment, he made a forced march for field guidance to areas on the northern tip of the country.

It was thanks to his total dedication that the DPRK emerged a satellite producer and launcher and a nuclear weapons state to rank itself among a few powers in the world possessed of ultra-modern technology and brought about leaping progress in the Juche-based industry in the era of great surge.

The cause of new industrialization based on ultra-modern science and technology in the new century is now being accomplished.

Running high in the country are the faith in sure victory and firm will to boldly hit the targets for modernization on the basis of the self-supporting economy and reach the eminence of an economic power at a breath.

He always found himself among people, sharing weal and woe with them on the road of endless journeys for field guidance.

It was in this course that he formed an integral whole with them and regarded it a signpost of his firm faith to make the good people happy.

Even during long foreign trips, Kim Jong Il looked seated in tears till late at night on a running train, thinking of the people at home.

Watching a shoal of fishes gathering before him at a fish breeding farm, kind-hearted Kim Jong Il said it would be much better, if all of them found their way to people, instead of coming to him.

When seeing people move into new houses, he would wish them all the best and happiness before parting from them.

That was why the Korean people called him as their father and profoundly revered him.