The Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea defined that the economy in the DPRK is a self-supporting and planned one that serves the people and herein lies the essential characteristics and superiority of the economy. As a socialist one, the economy in the DPRK has its own essential characteristics different from the one in other countries. The economy in the DPRK is a self-supporting one. The self-supporting economy is the one which is free from dependence on others and which stands on its own feet. In other words, it is the economy that has its own solid foundations of an independent industry and develops by relying on them. In this respect, self-supporting economy is fundamentally different from the economy depending on the outside forces, which is seriously affected by a slight external factor. The economy in the DPRK is a planned economy. The planned economy is the one that develops in a planned and balanced manner under the unified guidance and strategic control of the state. In the DPRK, the state exercises centralized guidance and control so as to numerically envisage objects of and ways for economic development on the basis of a unified control of resources of the country and include them in plans, thus conducting the economic activities including production and distribution, circulation and consumption in a planned way. The DPRK’s planned economy is fundamentally different from the capitalist economy in which spontaneity, economic imbalance and anarchy of production are proved, as the latter aims at the increase of profit based on capitalist ownership. The economy in the DPRK is the one that serves the people. That the economy serves the people means that all the economic affairs are organized on the principle of gearing all the material wealth of the country towards the promoting the welfare of the people, the masters of the economy. For this reason the economy in the DPRK is quite distinctive from the capitalist economy in which all the material wealth are focused on the minor exploiting class possessed of the means of production and the people are forced the absence of rights and the poverty. Today the people in the DPRK are making active efforts to apply in practice the measures taken for improving the economic management, true to the tasks put forward at the Eighth Congress of the WPK in order to further strengthen the essential characteristics of the socialist economy running through with the independent, planned and people-oriented characters.