IMF Estimates Korea’s 2021 Growth Rate at 3.6%
The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on April 27 that South Korea’s real GDP increased 1.6 percent from the previous quarter and 1.8 percent from a year ago in the first quarter of this year whereas most international organizations and global investment banks estimated an increase of up to 1 percent.
The growth rate of South Korea is the highest in the group of advanced economies making up the G10 economies. The South Korean economy was the 10th-largest in the world as of the end of last year. South Korea’s GDP for the first quarter of this year is 100.4 when its GDP for the fourth quarter of 2019 is 100. The former figure as compared with the reference value is 98.9, 97.7 and 94.9 in the case of the United States, Japan and Germany, respectively. Those are 90.7, 95.2, 93 and 98.1 in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada, respectively.
Those are 106.9 and 102.5 in China and India, respectively. The second-largest and sixth-largest economies in the world have been classified as emerging economies in the statistics of the ministry.
In the meantime, the IMF recently estimated South Korea’s economic growth rate for this year at 3.6 percent. According to it, only eight out of the G20 countries are expected to return to the pre-COVID-19 level this year and South Korea, the United States and Australia are the only advanced economies that constitute the eight.
The OECD recently estimated South Korea’s economic growth rate for 2021 at 3.3 percent. The average provided by global investment banks is 3.9 percent. The estimates of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank are 4.1 percent, 4.1 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.