Economic growth rate of 0.7% in the first quarter… Supporting exports to reduce consumption and investment

The Korean economy grew only 0.7% in the first quarter (January to March) as private consumption and investment took a step back due to the impact of the COVID-19 Omicron pandemic, supply bottlenecks, and the Ukraine crisis.

If we look only at the first quarter results, it is not easy to achieve the annual growth rate of 3.0% that the Bank of Korea predicted in February, so it is expected that the downward revision of the forecast is inevitable.

The Bank of Korea announced today (26th) that the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in the first quarter of this year (preliminary estimate, QoQ) was 0.7%.

The quarterly growth rate recorded negative (-) in the first quarter (-1.3%) and the second quarter (-3.2%) of 2020 along with the outbreak of COVID-19, followed by the third quarter (2.2%), the fourth quarter (1.1%), and the first quarter of 2021. Following the quarter (1.7%), the second quarter (0.8%), the third quarter (0.3%), and the fourth quarter (1.2%), it maintained growth for seven consecutive quarters so far.

However, the growth rate in the first quarter of this year fell by 0.5 percentage points (p) from the previous quarter.

Real gross domestic income (GDI) growth rate was calculated to be 0.6%, lower than real GDP growth rate (0.7%) due to worsening terms of trade.

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(Photo = provided by the Bank of Korea, Yonhap News)