North Korea's Kim Jong Un has attended a parade in Pyongyang marking the end of a four-day congress by the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, a news report says.
Kim "took the tribune of honour at the square before the start of the mass rally", Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency was quoted as saying by Japan's Kyodo News agency.
Thousands of people waved flags and balloons in the capital, and statues of Kim's predecessors in the dynasty, founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il.
Kim was awarded the new title of chairman of the Workers' Party, prompting congratulations from Beijing.
China's President Xi Jinping offered his "fervent" congratulations on behalf of China's Central Committee of the Communist Party, according to a report by KCNA.
Experts saw the message as an attempt to mend recently strained ties.
The relationship between North Korea and China was a "shared invaluable asset", the letter was quoted as saying by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.
Beijing is the isolated, communist regime's only significant international ally and trade partner.
But the friendship has come under strain recently as North Korea's nuclear weapons program and belligerent statements prompted the international community to pressure China to lean on the regime.
China has said it will enforce the latest round of sanctions against North Korea by the UN Security Council, which followed a nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch in February.
Kim received his new designation on Monday, the last full day of the party's first congress in more than 30 years.
The rare congress was the first to allow foreign journalists.
The BBC reported that one of its journalists was expelled from the country along with his team because he had been "speaking very ill of the system" in his reporting.
Reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes was interrogated for eight hours before being flown to Beijing, the BBC said.
The gathering is seen as a way for Kim to consolidate his position as supreme leader of the secretive nation. As secretary of the group, which runs the one-party state, he was already considered its head.
Foreign journalists visiting North Korea normally have to go through strict vetting procedures, promise to stick to reporting on agreed subjects and pay fixed daily rates in foreign currency for packages of accommodation, organised activities and official chaperones.
