SEOUL - NORTH Korea plans to host its Arirang festival - the world's largest mass performance - this year and schoolchildren have been practising daily since last month, a tour agency said on Tuesday.

'It's expected to go ahead and the date is to be the same as usual basically,' Simon Cockerell from Koryo Tours in Beijing told AFP.

The company said on its website the mass games will almost certainly be held from the beginning of August until the end of September and possibly into October, although dates have not yet been confirmed.

The festival features more than 100,000 performers in a 90-minute display of gymnastics, dance, acrobatics and dramatic performances, accompanied by music and other effects in a highly politicised package.

The communist country has held it intermittently since 2002.

North Korea every year attracts about 2,000 Western tourists of whom 1,200-1,400 come during the games period, Cockerell said.

The festival 'is not just about money. It trains a very large number of people in teamwork ability and things like that,' he said.

Cockerell rejected allegations by some rights groups that children are forced to practise hard for many days for the event.

'Children after school join gymnastics clubs or dance clubs and then they would be expected to be in the mass games, which for most people in Pyongyang is a great honour,' he said.

'People want to do that. It's quite a prestigious thing to be in.' He said he doubts whether Arirang makes much money for the impoverished country given the expense of staging it. -- AFP