Falling National Economy
It has been found that South Korea recorded an average manufacturing capacity utilization of 70.3% in October this year, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous month. This can be attributed to the discontinuation of the production of the Galaxy Note 7 and exports that remain sluggish.
The total industrial production fell 0.4% month on month as well to drop for the second consecutive month. Specifically, the mining and manufacturing production fell 1.7% with the production of telecom and broadcasting equipment showing a drop of 18.1% for the discontinuation. The service sector recorded a decline of 0.2%, too. Capital expenditure fell 2.1% in September and 0.4% in the following month, when the amount of machinery orders received dropped by 13%.
On the other hand, retail sales increased 5.2% in October after having dropped 4.5% in the previous month. The sales of durable goods showed an increase of 10.8%, led by discounts provided by automakers and so on, and the sales of semi-durable goods went up by 3.2%.
In the meantime, Barclays recently forecast that South Korea’s year-on-year economic growth rate is likely to stand at 0.8% in the fourth quarter of this year, the lowest since the second quarter of 2009. It also mentioned that the month-on-month growth is unlikely to exceed 0.2% in the same quarter.