South Korea’s central bank lowers 2012 growth outlook

By IANS,

Seoul : South Korea’s central bank lowered Friday the country’s economic growth outlook for 2012 to 3.7 percent from an earlier estimate of 4.6 percent, citing slower export growth hit by Europe’s debt crisis and global economic slowdown.


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The Bank of Korea (BOK) also revised down the 2011 growth outlook to 3.8 percent from 4.3 percent estimated in July. The Asia’s No. 4 economy was forecast to grow 4.2 percent in 2013, reported Xinhua.

“The South Korean economy is forecast to show signs of mild slowdown from the second half of 2011 to the first half of 2012 due to the decelerating global economic growth following the sovereign debt problems in the euro area and to the increased volatility in the financial and foreign exchange markets,” the BOK said in a statement.

The BOK, however, expected the domestic economy to return to its long-term growth trend from the second half of next year as the conditions in the euro area was predicted to improve from that period.

The outlook for 2012 consumer price inflation was cut to 3.3 percent from a previous estimate of 3.4 percent due to slower growth and a blunt rise in international commodity prices. The projection for 2011 inflation was unchanged at 4 percent, or the upper ceiling of the BOK’s inflation target band 2-4 percent.

Export growth was expected to post 5 percent in 2012, down from 11.6 percent estimated for 2011, but private consumption was projected to expand 3.2 percent next year, up from an estimated 2.5 percent growth for this year.

Meanwhile, the BOK left the outlooks of jobless rate for 2011 and 2012 unchanged at 3.5 percent and 3.4 percent respectively.

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