Hu, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with a delegation led by Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly.

China and the DPRK shared a profound traditional friendship, which had developed thanks to the care and promotion of the CPC Central Committee General Secretary Jiang Zemin and Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee General Secretary Kim Jong II, he said.

Bilateral relations would continue to develop in the new century along the line of "inheriting tradition, looking forward to future, promoting good-neighborly friendship and enhancing cooperation", he said.

The Chinese side was willing to make concerted efforts with the DPRK to implement the consensus reached by Jiang and Kim, deepening party-to-party and state-to-state exchanges and developing ties, Hu said.

Hu also commended the efforts made by the DPRK people to revive their economy and improve people's lives under the leadership of General Secretary Kim.

Yang said that the WPK and the DPRK government attached importance to the bilateral friendship and had always made the relationship a foreign affairs priority. The DPRK was delighted to see China's achievements in socialist construction and the reform and opening-up drive, he said.

The DPRK supported China's "one country, two systems" approach to the reunification of China, he said.

He also briefed Hu on the DPRK's political and economic situation. The DPRK would promote detente on the Korean Peninsula and its peaceful reunification on the basis of the June 15 Deceleration of the North-South Summit, he stressed.

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2002)