April 19, 2024

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South Korea’s finance minister on April 29 ruled out the possibility that the government would adjust the country‘s economic growth target despite an economic slowdown.

“For now, (the government) has no plan to revise its growth rate forecast,”, Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki told reporters after a meeting with officials at a government building in Seoul.

His comments came days after the Bank of Korea said that the country’s gross domestic product backtracked an estimated 0.3 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter, marking the worst performance in almost a decade.

Korea has projected the nation’s economy to expand between 2.6 percent and 2.7 percent this year. The economy grew 3.1 percent in 2017 and 2.9 percent in 2016.

Policymakers here are pinning hopes that the country’s outbound shipments will recover during the second half of the year and chip prices will rebound gradually as well.

Hong has said that a 6.7 trillion-won ($5.8 billion) extra budget could provide momentum for an economic recovery in the second half and contribute to boosting Korea’s GDP by 0.1 percentage point this year.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)