The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will continue to enhance economic and cultural cooperation with China under the guidelines of a cooperation pact signed 55 years ago, the DPRK's vice premier said on Thursday.

The DPRK-China Cooperation Accord on Economy and Culture signed in 1953, which helped the two countries intensify economic and cultural cooperation, played an important role in boosting bilateral ties, said Vice Premier Ro Du Chol.

He was speaking at a reception in Pyongyang commemorating the 55th anniversary of the agreement, co-hosted by the DPRK's Foreign Trade and Culture ministries.

The pact has built a legal foundation for developing bilateral economic and cultural ties, said Ri Myung San, DPRK's vice minister of Foreign Trade. The DPRK-China friendship was bound to intensify under the deep care of the two countries' leaders, he added.

The varied bilateral friendship-building events carried out in the past years have proved the vitality of the accord, said Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the DPRK, adding that effective exchange and cooperation between the two countries in every field have injected vigor into China-DPRK relations in the new century.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)