Current Economic Situation, April 2021

 

Manufacturing and Services Rise,

Retail Sales Slowing and CPI Edging Up

 

Manufacturing, services and construction investment improved in February, while retail sales and facilities investment went down.  Employment rebounded in March and consumer price inflation edged up. 

 

Industrial production rose 2.1 percent from the previous month in February as mining and manufacturing (up 4.3%, m-o-m and up 0.9%, y-o-y), as well as services (up 1.1%, m-o-m and down 0.7%, y-o-y), improved.  Industrial production rose 0.4 percent year on year.

 

Retail sales (down 0.8%, m-o-m and up 8.4%, y-o-y) and facilities investment (down 2.5%, m-o-m and up 7.0%, y-o-y) wend down.  Completed construction works increased (up 6.5%, m-o-m and down 8.7%, y-o-y).

 

Exports went up 16.6 percent year-on-year in March backed by strong chips, petrochemicals and other major products.  Average daily exports, an indicator calculated according to the days worked, improved 16.6 percent from a year ago (US $1.92 billion, March 2020 → US $2.24 billion, March 2021).

 

The consumer sentiment index (CSI) rose 3.1 points in March to 100.5.  The business sentiment index (BSI) for the manufacturing went up 7 points to 89, and the BSI outlook for April improved 4 points to 91. 

 

The cyclical indicator of the coincident composite index for February rose 0.3 points to 99.7, and the cyclical indicator of the leading composite index increased 0.2 points to 102.9.

 

The economy added 314,000 jobs year-on-year in March, rebounding from 473,000 losses of the previous month.  The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points from a year ago to 4.3 percent.

 

Consumer price inflation went up in March to 1.5 percent year-on-year due to high oil prices.  Core inflation rose 1.0 percent.

 

The March stock market rose slightly amid US treasury yields surging and expectations for economic recovery continuing.  The won weakened due to the strong dollar, and Korea treasury yields went up reflecting high global interest rates.

 

House prices rose slowly in March (up 0.89% → up 0.74%, m-o-m), as well as Jeonse (lump-sum deposits with no monthly payments) prices (up 0.64% → up 0.46%, m-o-m).

 

Exports and manufacturing remaining strong, the Koran economy has recently seen employment rise and domestic demand gradually recover.

 

Expectations growing of global economic recovery backed by expanded vaccine rollouts and fiscal stimulus, COVID-19 infections rise and inflation concerns linger. 

 

The government will implement as planned its measures to support exports and boost domestic demand, while strengthening its risk management.

 

 

 

 

Key Statistics

 

 

Employment

 

	2020												2021
	Annual	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
Number of employed (million)	26.90	26.84	26.61	26.56	26.93	27.06	27.11	27.08	27.01	27.09	27.24	26.53	25.82	26.37	26.92
Employment rate (%)	60.1	60.0	59.5	59.4	60.2	60.4	60.5	60.4	60.3	60.4	60.7	59.1	57.4	58.6	59.8
(Seasonally adjusted)	60.1	61.5	60.0	59.4	59.6	59.7	59.9	60.0	59.8	59.8	60.1	59.6	58.9	60.1	60.3

 

 

 

Consumer Price Index

 

                                                                                         (%)

	2020										2021
	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
y-o-y	1.0	0.1	-0.3	0.0	0.3	0.7	1.0	0.1	0.6	0.5	0.6	1.1	1.5
m-o-m	-0.2	-0.6	-0.2	0.2	0.0	0.6	0.7	-0.6	-0.1	0.2	0.8	0.5	0.1

 

 

 

Mining and Manufacturing

 

            (Percentage change from the previous period, %)

1. Preliminary

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

3. End-period

 

 

Service Output

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2018	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Jan¹	Feb¹
Service output	2.3	1.4	0.3	0.5	0.7	0.4	-2.0	-2.9	-1.3	2.0	0.9	-0.1	1.1

1. Preliminary

 

 

Retail Sales

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2018	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Jan¹	Feb¹
Retail sales	4.3	2.4	1.5	0.2	-0.1	2.0	-0.2	-5.7	5.9	-1.1	0.9	1.6	-0.8
y-o-y	-	-	1.6	2.0	2.3	3.3	-	-2.9	2.0	1.6	-1.2	0.0	8.4

1. Preliminary

 

 

Facility Investment Index

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2018	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Jan¹	Feb¹
Facility investment index	-3.6	-5.7	-3.4	2.1	2.0	3.4	6.0	-1.0	2.7	2.2	0.8	6.5	-2.5
y-o-y	-	-	-18.2	-6.3	-1.3	4.5	-	8.1	5.8	7.7	2.8	19.6	7.0

1. Preliminary

 

Construction Completed

 

(Percentage change from the previous period, %)

	2018	2019					2020					2021
	Annual	Annual	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Annual¹	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4¹	Jan¹	Feb¹
Construction completed (constant)	-4.2	-2.3	2.6	0.2	-2.2	1.0	-4.1	-0.7	-2.9	-2.8	2.5	-7.7	6.5
y-o-y	-	-	-5.9	-2.4	-3.4	2.1	-	-0.8	-5.5	-4.2	-5.3	-8.1	-8.7

1. Preliminary

 

 

Composite Indices of Coincident and Leading Indicators

 

                                                                                     (Points)

	2020						2021
	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec¹	Jan¹	Feb¹
Cyclical indicator of coincident composite index	97.6	98.1	98.5	99.0	99.5	99.7	99.4	99.7
m-o-m (points)	0.2	0.5	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.2	-0.3	0.3
Cyclical indicator of leading composite index	100.0	100.6	101.0	101.4	102.0	102.4	102.7	102.9
m-o-m (points)	0.3	0.6	0.4	0.4	0.6	0.4	0.3	0.2

1. Preliminary

 

Exports and Imports

 

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

	2017	2018	2019	2020						2021
	Annual	Annual	Annual	Annual	Q1	Mar	Q2	Q3	Q4	Feb	Mar¹
Exports	573.69	604.86	542.22	512.50	130.18	46.17	110.34	130.07	141.90	48.81	53.83
(y-o-y, %)	15.8	5.4	-10.4	-5.5	-1.9	-1.8	-20.3	-3.5	4.1	9.5	16.6
Average daily exports	2.13	2.24	1.99	1.88	1.91	1.92	1.65	1.86	2.09	2.30	2.24
Imports	478.48	535.20	503.34	467.63	124.50	41.80	108.39	114.07	123.68	42.19	49.65
(y-o-y, %)	17.8	11.9	-6.0	-7.1	-1.9	-0.4	-15.8	-8.7	-1.7	14.1	18.8
Average daily imports	1.78	1.98	1.85	1.71	1.79	1.74	1.62	1.63	1.82	2.16	2.07

1. Preliminary

 

 

 

Please refer to the attached pdf