Attending it were Kim Yong Nam, Pak Pong Ju and other senior party, state and army officials, the chairman of a friendly party, officials of armed organs, the Cabinet, working people's organizations, ministries and national institutions and persons of merits.

Present on invitation were a congratulatory group of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan in celebration of the 69th founding anniversary of the DPRK, a delegation of the Korean Democratic Women's Union in Japan to mark the 70th anniversary of its formation, and other overseas compatriots, and foreign guests including representatives of embassies of different countries and international bodies and their wives and military attaches and their wives.

Kim Yong Nam, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, said in his speech at the banquet that the blue and red flag of the DPRK reflects noble patriotism of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il.

He extended the highest tribute and eternal glory to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il who built the country into an invincible power independent in politics, self-supporting in the economy and self-reliant in defence and demonstrating its might with Songun, and a country centered on the popular masses in which the Juche-based view on the people and popular philosophy are put into practice.

He noted that the DPRK is making a leap forward full of faith under the great plan for building a socialist power under the guidance of respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in the face of the worst adversity, greeting the heyday of its development.

No force on the earth can block the heroic advance of the DPRK dashing ahead like the storming wind under the banner of self-reliance, united close around the Party Central Committee, and the world will witness how Kim Il Sung's nation and Kim Jong Il's Korea will fly the banner of the final victory on the eminence of the powerful socialist nation, he stressed.