South Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in eight years last year even as the expansion slowed in the final quarter amid weakness in capital spending, manufacturing and construction.
GDP advanced 6.1 percent last year, the Bank of Korea (BOK) announced yesterday, marking the best performance since a 7.2 percent surge in 2002.
South Korea grew a meager 0.2 percent in 2009 amid the global economic slowdown that followed the worldwide financial meltdown of late 2008.
The robust result for last year was achieved “owing to the buoyancy of exports and the ensuing pick-up in manufacturing and facilities investment,” the central bank said in a release.
However, growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, which is home to manufacturing giants including Samsung Electronics Co and Hyundai Motor Co, slowed in the three months ending Dec. 31, expanding 0.5 percent from the third quarter when it grew 0.7 percent.
Still, the result marked the eighth straight quarter of growth for South Korea, which had contracted during the final six months of 2008 during the global downturn.
The figures are preliminary and may be revised.
The BOK expects South Korea’s growth to slow to a more normal 4.5 percent this year after last year’s bounce back from the crisis — matching a forecast by the IMF — before picking up to 4.7 percent next year. The South Korean government says growth could come in at about 5 percent.
The latest GDP figures come as South Korea and other economies in Asia excluding Japan take steps to tamp down rising inflation. The BOK earlier this month raised its key interest rate to 2.75 percent from 2.50 percent and economists expect more hikes this year.
The central bank said last month that this year’s consumer price inflation was set to increase to 3.5 percent from 2.9 percent last year. The country’s consumer price index rose to 3.5 percent last month from the same month the year before. The bank’s inflation target is 3 percent, though that includes what it calls a “tolerance range” of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
Highlighting inflation worries, South Korean consumer confidence fell amid growing concern about future price hikes.
The composite consumer sentiment index for this month recorded a reading of 108, down from 109 last month and the second straight monthly decline, though it remained well above the benchmark level of 100, a separate BOK report showed yesterday.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last