South Korea’s central bank on Thursday raised its 2021 economic growth outlook to 4 percent, 1 percentage point higher than the estimate unveiled three months earlier.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) revised up its growth forecast for 2022 by 0.5 percentage points to 3 percent. It came after the BOK decided earlier in the day to keep its benchmark interest rate on hold at an all-time low of 0.5 percent. The bank lowered the rate to the current level to tackle an economic downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic. The BOK upgraded its 2021 headline inflation outlook by 0.5 percentage points to 1.8 percent, leaving the forecast for next year unchanged at 1.4 percent.
