During the 8 years of the DPRK leadership, Kim Jong-un has been trying to position himself as a major reformer of the economy and the main military strategist in the development of the production of the latest intercontinental missiles directed towards the United States. Kim Jong-un presented the economic program for the first time at the VII Congress of the Labor Party of Korea in 2016 in the format of the three main tasks of the first five-year plan for 2016-2020. Tasks. To summarize Kim Jong-un's innovations in economic development and prove that they will be effective in the context of expanding trade and economic cooperation between the DPRK and China, Russia, as well as reducing the US sanctions policy against the DPRK. Methodology. The use of methods of scientific knowledge of the reformation of the economy of less developed countries. Results. The scale of economic innovations of Kim Jong-un and the influence of the legacy left by Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il from the position of national ideology are proved to be self-reliant (Juche), which complicates and slows down the transition of North Korea to the number of democratically developed countries of the world, political and trade-economic DPRK cooperation with the Republic of Korea. Findings. Today, China has always been and remains the main military-political ally and economic partner of the DPRK. Sino-US relations have become much more complicated as a result of the trade war and US accusations of concealing by China the real reasons for the appearance and spread of COVID-19 all over the world. The DPRK's economic relations with the United States do not develop after direct contact in 2019 of Donald Trump with Kim Jong-un. External and internal threats and risks in the use of innovations remain.