IMF Slashes Growth Outlook for Korea to 2.7%

Korea's growth rate will be much lower than the government's target of 3.1 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund forecasts.

In a global economic outlook report released Tuesday, the IMF drastically slashed the growth outlook for Korea from 3.4 percent to 2.7 percent.

In October last year, it predicted the Korean economy would grow four percent this year, but the prediction has been dwindling to 3.7 percent in February and 3.4 percent in April.

The IMF's latest outlook is same as the Asian Development Bank's but still higher than the 2.4 percent average projected by global investment banks.

In July, the Bank of Korea also revised down its estimate for this year from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent.

In a parliamentary audit on Monday, Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said the government will do its best to achieve its growth target of 3.1 percent but admitted there is a chance that it might go down.

The IMF also lowered the growth outlook for the global economy from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent but revised the figure for the U.S. up slightly from 2.5 percent to 2.6 percent.

For most other countries the prediction was slashed, with Japan down 0.2 percentage points to 0.6 percent and Germany down 0.1 percentage points to 1.5 percent.