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Speech of by Kim Jong Il at Banquet

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Pyongyang, January 18 (KCNA) -- Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and president of the People's Republic of China, hosted a grand banquet at the Great Hall of the People in honor of Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK, on visit to China. Kim Jong Il said in his speech:
    We have visited the southern part of the People's Republic of China as our first political itinerary in the new year at the kind invitation of you esteemed Comrade General Secretary Hu Jintao.
    First of all, I would like to express my great pleasure of meeting you here in Beijing today in the wake of our meeting in Pyongyang last October. Our long-cherished hope to visit the southern part of the Chinese land has come true at last thanks to your proposal and particular care. Allow me to express my thanks to you Comrade General Secretary Hu Jintao for having meticulously organized the specific course of our trip to different places of the southern part of China.
    Our profound thanks also goes to several leading cadres in Beijing and in the localities for having warmly received us and accorded us cordial hospitality despite the pressure of their work in the run-up to the lunar New Year's Day. I would like to express, at the same time, my thanks to you Comrade General Secretary Hu Jintao for having hosted this grand banquet and made such enthusiastic speech.
    Our visit provided us with an opportunity to get familiar with peculiar and diverse aspects of the Chinese nation in natural, social, cultural and various other fields in the vast land of China. We were deeply impressed by the shining achievements made in the high-tech field, in particular. Warm hospitality accorded to us by Chinese comrades in Wuhan, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Shenzhen and every other place we went and the warm southern climate pleased us away from intense cold of mid-winter though for a short time.
    The progress made in the southern part of China which has undergone a rapid change and the stirring reality of China, in particular, deeply impressed us.
    Still fresh in my memory is my visit to Shanghai five years ago that has changed beyond recognition. Touring various special economic zones making a great contribution to the socialist modernization drive with Chinese characteristics, we were more deeply moved by the Chinese people's enterprising and persevering efforts and fruits born by them.
    In a word, our visit to the southern part of China convinced us once again that China has a rosier future thanks to the correct line and policies advanced by the Communist Party of China.
    The astonishing changes that have taken place in the vast land of China have been possible because the CPC laid down a new line and policies to suit the specific conditions of the country such as the thought of "three represents", the " view on scientific development" and "construction of a harmonious socialist society" and powerfully encouraged the people in their efforts to materialize them.
    It is our firm belief that the hard-working Chinese people will successfully attain the far-reaching targets of the new 11th five-year plan and thus build a comprehensively well-off socialist society before long and accomplish the cause of complete reunification of the country without fail. We are rejoiced as over our own over the fact that everything goes on well in China, our neighbor, and satisfied over the steady vigorous development of the DPRK-China friendly relations despite the present complicated situation.
    The DPRK-China relations provided and cultivated by revolutionary forerunners of the two countries go a long way towards giving a strong impetus to our socialist construction and ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and, furthermore, in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world. We feel sincerely thankful to the Chinese party, government and people for invariably setting store by the DPRK-China friendship on a strategic level and rendering disinterested support and assistance to the Korean people in their struggle to defend socialism.
    The Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government will as ever exert every effort to consolidate the ties of fraternal friendship deeply rooted in the minds of the two peoples and inject more fresh energy into this friendship, common boon, in various fields.