SEOUL: South Korea’s economic growth is expected to have slowed significantly in the fourth quarter as October’s national holiday weighed on factory output. A Reuters survey of 10 economists found the economy was expected to have grown just 0.1 percent in the October-December period from a quarter earlier, a big step down from the third quarter’s 1.5 percent rise. The same poll found that gross domestic product growth was seen expanding 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, also slowing down from 3.8 percent growth in September quarter. Weaker factory output due to the long Chuseok holiday (in October) seems to have pressured overall economic growth,” said Lee Sang-jae, an economist at Eugene Investment & Securities. “Domestic consumption will continue its recovery, but tougher housing rules would have had a negative impact on capital and construction investment in the last three months,” added Lee. Factory output barely rebounded in November after contracting in holiday-shortened October at the sharpest rate since 2013. South Korea said in October that it would impose mortgage curbs on owners of multiple homes to put a brake on binge borrowing, starting this year. Poll respondents noted that robust exports, which have risen for 14 straight months, kept year-on-year growth at around 3 percent.
Japanese Companies Operating in Korea Pay a Low Tax Rate
Although Japanese companies earned nearly 48 trillion won in sales in Korea in the past four years, they paid only...
