Central Bank Lowers Growth Outlook to 3%

The Bank of Korea on Thursday slashed its growth forecast for the country's economy this year by 0.2 percentage points to three percent.

BOK official Chang Min said the main reason was the slowing global economy.

But the BOK's outlook is still rosier than the projections of private institutions. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance projects 3.1 percent growth, while the state-run Korea Development Institute forecasts three percent.

But the LG Economic Research Institute forecasts 2.5-percent growth, the Korea Economic Research Institute 2.6 percent and the Hyundai Research Institute 2.8 percent. The average growth outlook of foreign investment banks stands at 2.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the BOK's monetary policy committee on Thursday kept the interest rate unchanged at a record-low 1.5 percent for the seventh month running.

"It's wrong to think that we'd cut the key interest rate because we slashed our growth forecast," BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol said.

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