S. Korea growth falls to 2.7pc, slowest in six years

South Korea’s GDP growth slowed to its weakest in six years at 2.7 per cent in 2018, the central bank said yesterday, as President Moon Jaein’s ratings fall amid concerns over the health of the world’s 11th-largest economy. Public discontent over the sluggish economy, especially on relatively high youth unemployment, has dragged Moon’s approval ratings below 50 percent, down from the 80s he was scoring in May after his first summit with the North’s leader Kim Jong Un.

The 2018 growth figure was down 0.4 percentage points from the previous year, the central Bank of Korea said, and the weakest since the 2.3pc recorded in 2012. South Korea’s export-driven economy has been pressured by slowing growth in China, its biggest trading partner, where expansion slipped to a 28-year low last year. The South has also been squeezed by trade tensions between the US and the Asian giant, the world’s top two economies.

But GDP expanded 3.1pc year-on-year in the last quarter, the central bank said, led by government spending and construction and infrastructure investment. Moon sacked his top two economic officials in November, the finance minister and his policy chief, and his chief of staff left earlier this month.