Recovery Signal?
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance and Statistics Korea announced on March 31 that Korea’s overall industrial production, retail sales, and capital expenditures increased 2.5 percent, 2.8 percent, and 3.6 percent month-on-month in February, respectively.
Mining and manufacturing industry production increased 2.6 percent, led by the automobile (4.6 percent) and semiconductor (6.6 percent) sectors, and the wholesale and retail production and the financial and insurance sector output showed a growth of 3.7 percent and 2.9 percent each to raise the service industry output by 1.6 percent, the largest increment since March 2011.
The increase in retail sales was thanks to an increase in the sales of non-durable goods (4.2 percent), like food and beverages, and semi-durable goods (3.9 percent) such as clothes. Major supermarkets, smaller supermarkets, convenience stores, and non-store retailers raised their sales by 22.6 percent, 13 percent, 6.3 percent, and 3.6 percent from a year ago, respectively. The improvement in capital expenditures was led by investment in transportation equipment and the automobile sector, while the value of completed construction showed a growth rate of 4.5 percent from a month ago.
The cyclical component of the coincident index gained 0.3 points month-on-month to show an improvement for the third consecutive month. The cyclical component of the leading index rose by 0.6 points, too.
In the meantime, manufacturing companies’ business survey index (BSI) rose from 74 to 77 points between February and March according to the Bank of Korea’s data released on the previous day, and the BSI of large corporations and exporters showed improvement from 75 to 81 and from 73 to 81 each.