Anchor: Major global investment banks have issued a grim outlook for the South Korean economy this year with forecasts of growth in the low one-percent range, below one-percent or even negative growth. Their outlooks are significantly lower than those by the government and the Bank of Korea.
Moon Gwang-lip has more.

Report: Major investment banks(IB) believe that posting growth significantly above one percent this year could be a daunting task for South Korea.

According to the Korea Center for International Finance on Thursday, the average projection of growth by eight foreign IBs – Barclays, BofA Securities, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC, Nomura and UBS – came to one-point-one percent for 2023 as of late March.

While six IBs gave an outlook in the one-percent range, Citi predicted a zero-point-seven-percent expansion, and Nomura, contraction of negative-zero-point-four percent.

This outlook is much gloomier than the one issued by the Korean government and the Bank of Korea. In a revised report in February, the central bank said the economy will grow one-point-six percent this year before recovering next year to the nation’s potential growth range of two percent to two-point-four percent.

The government also offered a growth rate of one-point-six percent for this year, as did the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) last month, downgrading its previous outlook of one-point-eight percent. The International Monetary Fund(IMF) predicted one-point-seven percent growth for Korea this year.

The foreign IBs' growth prediction of one-point-one percent, which has remained unchanged since November, is reportedly attributed to the stagnant demand for Korean products amid a global economic slowdown as well as pressure on austerity measures driven by U.S. key rate hikes.

Meanwhile, the eight IBs revised down the average forecast for the growth of Asia’s fourth largest economy next year from two-point-one percent in late February to two percent.

Moon Gwang-lip, KBS World Radio News.