SEOUL: Scandal-hit South Korea kept its key interest rate unchanged yesterday at a record low, amid uncertainty over political changes in the country as well as in the United States. Its central bank – Bank of Korea – held the seven-day repurchase rate at 1.25 per cent for the fifth straight month after Mr Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election sent jitters around the globe.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Park Geun Hye’s government is struggling to contain the fallout from a crippling influence-peddling scandal involving one of her confidantes. The Bank of Korea made a surprise rate cut in June, citing the need to support the sluggish economy. South Korea’s exports, the mainstay of Asia’s fourth-largest economy, fell for the second straight month last month mainly because of a slump in car and mobile device shipments.
