They included the president of the People's Republic of China who is general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and his wife, the president of the Russian Federation, the president of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the president of Mongolia, the president of the Syrian Arab Republic and his wife, the president of the Republic of Singapore and her husband, the president of the Republic of Tajikistan, the president of Turkmenistan, the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam who is general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the president of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and his wife.

Also among them were the chairwoman of the Party for Peace and Unity of Russia, the chairman of "A Just Russia", the chairman of the Hungarian Workers' Party, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Portugal, the standing secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam who is member of its Political Bureau, and the national secretary of the Socialist Workers' Party of the United States of America.

Kim Jong Un also received New Year cards from the UN secretary general, the director-general of the UN Office in Vienna, the director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the president of the International Olympic Committee and the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.