Korea: A big week ahead, though nothing exciting - ING

Prakash Sakpal, Economist at ING, points out that after the usual end-of-month Korean activity data, the central bank (Bank of Korea) will hold its monetary policy meeting on Friday, 31 August.

Key Quotes

“We aren’t forecasting the BoK to change policy next week. Korea’s GDP growth has been stuck under 3% for the last three quarters, and new job creation dipped to an eight-year low in July. A further escalation of the US-China trade tension also reduces the potential for any export-led growth recovery in the period ahead.”

“We expect these risks to manifest in the activity data in coming months. With below-target inflation right now, the argument for the BoK to maintain its accommodative policy stance for the rest of the year remains strong.”

“Among the slew of activity releases next week, the forward-looking BoK Consumer and Business confidence indexes and July industrial production data for July will be under scrutiny for clues about the economy’s performance in the current quarter.”