"The delegation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) led by Kim Yong Nam ... will soon pay an official goodwill visit to the People's Republic of China," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Kim Yong-Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament, is a figurehead in a country where supreme leader Kim Jong-Il wields unchallenged power.

The visit is being made at the invitation of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the State Council of China, KCNA said in a brief dispatch.

KCNA gave no further details on the time and agenda of the trip but a foreign ministry spokeswoman in Beijing said Kim would visit from October

"During his visit, Chinese leaders will talk with him on all the issues that we are concerned about, but it is difficult for me to predict what issues they will discuss," Zhang Qiyue said at a regular press briefing.

The invitation comes as Beijing is apparently stepping up efforts to salvage six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear standoff, including the dispatch of a senior official to Pyongyang last month, which bore little fruit.

After three rounds of inconclusive talks, Pyongyang failed to turn up for a fourth round of multilateral talks in Beijing last month.

The trip is believed to be aimed at mending fences with Beijing for North Korea's decision to boycott the talks which it said was taken to protest South Korea's controversial nuclear experiments in 1982 and 2000, evidence of which emerged in September, and Washington's "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.

During his visit, Kim Young-Nam is likely to assure Beijing that Pyongyang will return to dialogue following the November US presidential elections.

He will also urge China to push harder for Pyongyang's demands that include a non-aggression pact with the United States in return for dismantling its nuclear programme, Yonhap news agency said here.

China is also dispatching a top envoy to Seoul. Beijing's special envoy for Korean Peninsula affairs, Ning Fukui, is expected here on Wednesday on a two-day trip before flying to the United States.

Ning is the deputy chief of the Chinse delegation to the talks which also include the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

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