North Korea's growing armed belligerence is a strategic opportunity for American multinational Honeywell.

"We fully expect it [North Korea] will help the defense side of our business because Japan, South Korea and others are going want to protect themselves and be a lot more careful because who knows where something like this can go," David Cote, executive chairman at Honeywell, said on the sidelines of the Singapore Summit.

For the second time in less than a month, Pyongyang on Friday fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan in what was widely seen as payback for the U.N. Security Council's latest sanctions.

Cote, however, struck a cautious note on the prospect of increased sales.

"Anything that starts people focused on spending money on defense as opposed to spending money commercially and improving lives of people, it's just not a good dynamic."

Defense accounts for 8 percent of Honeywell's operations, so "it's not a huge number for us," he added.

Cote said he hoped for a peaceful resolution to the North Korea situation, adding that Beijing, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul need to work together to contain nuclear threats.