South Korea’s finance minister said on Tuesday second-quarter growth is expected to be “much lower” than growth seen in the first quarter of this year.
“The global economic slowdown and lower oil prices have negatively affected Korea’s export performance,” Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan told reporters at a press event in Seoul.
Choi added domestic demand was dampened by the outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in late May.
“Taking these into consideration, we project that Korea’s real GDP growth in the second quarter will be much lower than the first quarter,” he said.
Preliminary second-quarter GDP data will be released by the Bank of Korea on July 23. BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol said early this month that growth in the April-June period would be around 0.4 percent in sequential terms.
Meanwhile, the minister said the government would work to get an 11.8 trillion won ($10.20 billion) supplementary budget currently handed over to parliament passed by the end of the week.
($1 = 1,157.4 won)