Seoul: North Korea returns to growth despite sanctions

In a file photo a girl tries on a pair of sunglasses as she sits in a trolley at the Kwangbok, or 'liberation', department store in Pyongyang. North Korea's sanctions-hit economy defied the impact of international restrictions to grow for the first time in three years in 2019, the South's central bank announced. - AFP

Seoul, July 31, 2020 (AFP): North Korea's sanctions-hit economy defied the impact of international restrictions to grow for the first time in three years in 2019, the South's central bank has announced.

Nuclear-armed Pyongyang is highly secretive and refuses to publish growth statistics of its own, leaving outsiders reliant on estimates drawn up from other sources.