North Korea promoted the popularity of statues it has exported, a state-run magazine showed Wednesday, highlighting ways the reclusive country has circumvented international sanctions aimed at cutting off sources of foreign currency earnings.

North Korea enjoys "superiority" in building socialist-style statues that cannot be imitated by any capitalist country, according to the December edition of the country's monthly magazine on art. 

But the United Nations Security Council imposed tougher sanctions against Pyongyang in November including caps on coal shipments and bans on statue exports to cut off the main sources of its hard currency earnings.

North Korea issued the magazine that promotes the country's statue exports just six days after the new sanctions were imposed on Nov. 30.

"Monuments and statues that we have built stand tall, even under complex political situations in the world," it said. "Our projects to build them are under way without interruption."

In 2010, North Korea built the 49-meter-tall African Renaissance Monument, Africa's tallest statue, in a suburb of Senegal's capital of Dakar that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from France. (Yonhap)