Current Economic Situation, May 2020

 

Manufacturing and Construction Improve,

Services and Retail Sales Falling

 

Mining and manufacturing improved from the previous month in March, as well as facilities investment and construction investment.  Service output and retail sales slowed down.

 

Industrial production fell 0.3 percent from the previous month in March.  Mining and manufacturing rose (up 4.6%, m-o-m and up 7.1%, y-o-y), while service output fell (down 4.4%, m-o-m and down 5.0%, y-o-y).  Industrial production rose 0.6 percent year on year.

 

Retail sales went down in March (down 1.0%, m-o-m and down 8.0%, y-o-y), and facilities investment (up 7.9%, m-o-m and up 9.8%, y-o-y) and construction investment (up 2.6%, m-o-m and up 1.5%, y-o-y) improved.

 

Exports fell 24.3 percent year-on-year in April due to weak demand and production disruption, as well as falling oil prices and fewer days worked (2 days).  Average daily exports, an indicator calculated according to the days worked, fell (US $2.03 billion (Apr 2019) → US $1.68 billion (Apr 2020)).

 

The consumer sentiment index (CSI) dropped 7.6 points in April to 70.8.  The business sentiment index (BSI) for the manufacturing sector fell 4 points to 52, and the BSI outlook for May went down 4 points to 50. 

 

The cyclical indicator of the coincident composite index for March fell 1.2 points to 98.6, and the cyclical indicator of the leading composite index dropped 0.6 points to 99.6.

 

The economy lost 476,000 jobs year-on-year in April due to weak services and manufacturing.  The unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points from a year ago to 4.2 percent.

 

Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent year-on-year in April due to low oil product and public service prices.  Fresh food prices grew slowly.  Core inflation rose 0.3 percent.

 

KOSPI rose in April with confirmed cases of COVID-19 declining.  The won strengthened somewhat and Korea treasury yields fell.

 

Housing prices rose slowly in April (up 0.54% → up 0.27%, m-o-m), as well as Jeonse (lump-sum deposits with no monthly payments) prices (up 0.19% → up 0.11%, m-o-m).

 

The economy has seen domestic demand declining and employment falling amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  Exports continued to slow down. 

 

Volatility in global financial markets has eased as economic activities resume in major countries, but worries linger over global recession, major countries’ economic indicators not yet picking up and uncertainties surrounding emerging economies.

 

The government will do its utmost to fast overcome the effect of the pandemic, including shocks to the job market.  The Central Economic Response Headquarters, a ministerial-level meeting, will ensure close ministerial cooperation. 

 

 

 

Key Statistics

 

Employment

 

	2017	2018			2019						2020
	Annual	Annual	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Apr	Q3	Q4	Q1	Mar	Apr
Number of employed (million)	26.73	26.82	27.02	26.97	27.12	26.46	27.26	27.04	27.38	27.39	26.75	26.61	26.56
Employment rate (%)	60.8	60.7	61.1	60.9	60.9	59.6	61.3	60.8	61.5	61.4	59.9	59.5	59.4
(Seasonally adjusted)	60.8	60.7	60.6	60.7	60.9	60.8	60.8	60.7	60.9	61.2	61.1	60.0	59.3

 

 

Consumer Price Index

 

(%)

	2019										2020
	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr
y-o-y	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.6	0.0	-0.4	0.0	0.2	0.7	1.5	1.1	1.0	0.1
m-o-m	0.4	0.2	-0.2	-0.3	0.2	0.4	0.2	-0.6	0.2	0.6	0.0	-0.2	-0.6

 

 

Mining and Manufacturing

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

1. Preliminary

2. Including mining, manufacturing, and electricity and gas supply

3. End-period

 

 

 

 

Service Output

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2017	2018			2019					2020
	Annual	Annual	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb¹	Mar¹
Service output	1.9	2.3	0.3	0.1	1.4	0.3	0.3	0.6	0.7	-3.0	0.5	-3.5	-4.4

1. Preliminary

 

 

Retail Sales

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2017	2018	2019					2020
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb¹	Mar¹
Retail sales	1.9	4.3	2.4	0.9	0.5	0.3	1.9	-6.4	-3.1	-6.0	-1.0
y-o-y	-	-	-	1.6	2.0	2.2	3.4	-2.9	1.8	-2.3	-8.0

1. Preliminary

 

 

Facility Investment Index

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2017	2018	2019					2020
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb¹	Mar¹
Facility investment index	14.4	-3.6	-6.2	-5.0	3.2	1.0	4.3	-3.5	-6.8	-5.2	7.9
y-o-y	-	-	-	-18.7	-6.7	-1.9	3.7	6.5	-4.1	15.1	9.8

1. Preliminary

 

Construction Completed

 

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2017	2018	2019					2020
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1¹	Jan	Feb¹	Mar¹
Construction completed (constant)	11.4	-4.2	-6.9	1.0	-1.8	-3.5	1.0	3.6	0.8	-2.6	2.6
y-o-y	-	-	-	-10.2	-6.8	-8.2	-2.9	-0.2	-7.1	5.3	1.5

 1. Preliminary

 

 

Composite Indices of Coincident and Leading Indicators

 

	2019					2020
	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan¹	Feb¹	Mar¹
Cyclical indicator of coincident composite index	99.9	100.0	100.0	99.9	100.2	100.5	99.8	98.6
m-o-m (points)	0.1	0.1	0.0	-0.1	0.3	0.3	-0.7	-1.2
Cyclical indicator of leading composite index	98.9	99.1	99.4	99.8	100.2	100.3	100.3	99.6
m-o-m (points)	-0.1	0.2	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.1	0.0	-0.6

1. Preliminary

 

Exports and Imports

 

(US$ billion, y-o-y, %)

	2017	2018	2019							2020
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Apr	Q3	Q4	Dec	Q1	Apr¹
Exports	573.69	604.86	542.22	132.65	138.49	48.78	134.73	136.36	45.67	130.81	46.91
(y-o-y, %)	15.8	5.4	-10.4	-8.5	-8.7	-2.1	-12.3	-11.8	-5.3	-1.4	-24.3
Average daily exports	2.13	2.24	1.99	2.03	2.02	2.03	1.95	1.96	1.99	1.92	1.68
Imports	478.48	535.20	503.34	123.80	128.77	45.05	124.96	125.81	43.69	122.08	37.87
(y-o-y, %)	17.8	11.9	-6.0	-6.5	-3.3	3.1	-4.1	-9.7	-0.8	-1.4	-15.9
Average daily imports	1.78	1.98	1.85	1.89	1.88	1.88	1.81	1.81	1.90	1.80	1.72

1. Preliminary

 

Please refer to the attached pdf