Participants in the 6th National Conference of War Veterans at the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort in South Pyongan Province, North Korea, in an undated photo released yesterday. North Korea's economy defied the impact of international restrictions to grow for the first time in three years last year, the South's central bank said yesterday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) in Seoul said the North's gross domestic product rose by 0.4 per cent, after shrinking by 4.1 per cent the previous year amid more stringent international sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons programme. But construction turned positive last year, the BOK said in a statement, as did the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector, while contraction in mining and manufacturing narrowed.