South Korea Lowers Growth Forecast to 3.1% in 2016

South Korea lowered its growth outlook for 2016 citing a weak recovery in exports.

The ministry of finance said Wednesday that Asia’s fourth-largest economy will expand 3.1 percent. It previously forecast 3.3 percent growth.

It would still be an improvement from 2015’s forecast growth of 2.7 percent. This year’s growth was much slower than the ministry’s forecast of 3.8 percent, due to slumping exports and a deadly respiratory syndrome that battered consumption.

Next year, South Korea’s government plans to introduce policies to boost exports, consumption and birth rates.

It will increase assistance to consumer products companies with big demand from China, such as cosmetics, food and baby products.

The country’s traditional export heavyweights, mainly shipbuilders, automakers and electronics companies, had a tough year in 2015.

via Mainichi

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza