Daily Times

South Korea on Wednesday revised down its 2023 economic growth outlook amid rising worries about a global economic downturn. Real gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, was forecast to expand by 1.6 percent in 2023, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. It was down 0.9 percentage points compared to the estimate unveiled six months earlier and lower than outlooks of 1.8 percent from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and 1.7 percent from the Bank of Korea. The downward revision came on the back of mounting concerns about the global economy, driven by rapid interest rate hikes in major economies and uncertainty over supply chain disruptions. The seasonally-adjusted production in all industries, which exclude the agricultural, livestock and fishery sector, fell 1.5 percent in October from a month earlier, marking the fastest reduction in the two and a half years since April 2020. Headline inflation was expected to slow down from 5.1 percent in 2022 to 3.5 percent in 2023 due to lower energy prices and weaker demand.