Pyongyang, March 28 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Xi Jinping made a speech at a grand banquet arranged in welcome of the China visit by respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

He said that the visit by Chairman Kim Jong Un is the one of great significance at a special time, and it suffices to prove that Chairman Kim Jong Un and the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea attach utmost importance to the relations between the two parties and two countries of China and the DPRK. It is also of weighty significance in deepening the communication between the two sides, strengthening cooperation and promoting partnership, he added.

He said the visit would make an important contribution to putting the relations between the two parties and two countries on a new stage and promoting the regional peace, stability and development at a new historical time.

The traditional Sino-DPRK friendship was personally provided and cultivated with much effort by the leaders of elder generations of the two parties and two countries, he said.

He noted that President Kim Il Sung visited China over 40 times in his lifetime, forging deep friendly feelings with the Chinese leaders of elder generation including Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai.

The traditional Sino-DPRK friendship is the unique one in the world that has been sealed in blood, and it provides the two parties and two peoples with happiness just as a luxuriant tree with deep roots and a never-drying spring, he pointed out.

When General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited China in May 2010, he said that the DPRK-China friendship is a heritage provided and bequeathed down to us by the revolutionaries of elder generation and that it is our historic and strategic option and unshakable stand to value it generation after generation, Xi Jinping said.

He said he had talks with Kim Jong Un in a friendly atmosphere.

We reached a consensus that it is in the common interests of both sides and a strategic option common to both sides to carry forward and glorify the traditional Sino-DPRK friendship, he said, adding:

We are convinced that no matter how the international and regional situations may change, both sides would take firm control of the general trend of the world development and the over-all phase of the development of Sino-DPRK relations, strengthen high-level visits, deepen strategic communication, and expand exchanges and cooperation, thereby providing the two countries and peoples with happiness.

At present the Chinese party, government and people are striving and struggling to realize the "Two Centenary Goals" and the dream of China, i.e. great prosperity of the Chinese nation, under the strategic assignments set forth by the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Xi Jinping, said that the diligent and resourceful Korean people are making redoubled efforts to build a socialist economic power under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea headed by Chairman Kim Jong Un.

He voiced firm support to the Korean comrades in their active efforts for defending the political stability and promoting the economic development and hoped that they would steadily make new greater successes in the cause of socialist construction in Korea, adding he is convinced of it. -0-