The Korea Electric Power Corporation said... the country's electricity sales for industrial use in January dropped 1.8 percent from a year earlier to 11.05 billion kilowatts, marking the first decline in 25 months.

After recording negative month-to-month growth during the entire year of 1998, when the country was gripped by the financial crisis, industrial power sales had remained in the positive territory since January 1999.

A KEPCO official said...the growth of industrial power sales is considered one of the key economic indexes.

He added that the decrease in sales last month is an indication that the economy is taking a serious downturn.

Power sales to industries sensitive to weakening domestic consumption fell drastically. Sales in the auto manufacturing and steel industries dropped 7.6 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively.