The International Monetary Fund has lowered Korea's economic growth outlook for 2013 to 3.2 percent, down from its previous forecast in October of 3.6 percent.

This would put the country 0.3 percentage point short of the global economic growth outlook for this year, which the IMF left unchanged at 3.5 percent.

However, the organization anticipates an upturn in 2014 that will take Korea's growth to 3.9 percent.