SEOUL: The Bank of Korea announced that Korea’s GDP edged up by just 0.8 percent from the previous quarter to 361.971 trillion won (US$335.638 billion) in the first quarter of 2015. The growth rate remained below 1 percent for the fourth consecutive quarter.
The percentage had reached 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2013, but dropped to 0.9 percent in each of the following two quarters. It had rebounded to 1.1 percent in Q1 2014, but plummeted again to 0.5 percent, 0.8 percent, and 0.3 percent during the remaining periods of that year.
Private consumption increased by no more than 0.6 percent, led mainly by the consumption of durable goods and services, while the increase in capital expenditures dropped from 4.0 percent to 0 percent.
The export growth rate remained at 0 percent as in the last quarter of 2014, with an increase in service exports offsetting the decline in the exports of LCD, automobiles, etc. The import growth added up to 0.5 percent, 0.2 percentage points lower than in Q4 2014.
Under the circumstances, the Bank of Korea is maintaining a negative outlook on the Korean economy. The central bank recently adjusted its GDP growth forecast for this year from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent, and consumer price inflation forecast from 1.9 percent to 0.9 percent.
