South Korea's facility investment is expected to decline next year for the second straight year as a global economic slump has begun to spill over into the real economy, the central bank said Monday.
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), the country's facility investment is projected to decline 3.8 percent next year, even lower than 0.2 percent fall estimated for this year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, South Korea's facility investment is estimated to have declined 7.2 percent from a year ago, compared with a 4.7 percent gain three months earlier, the BOK added.
If the projection is correct, it would be the first time that facility investment has contracted for the second straight year since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. In 1997 and 1998, facility investment dropped 9.6 percent and 42.3 percent, respectively compared to a year earlier, the central bank said.
The data comes as the South Korean economy expanded 0.5 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter, posting the weakest growth in four years.
Source: Xinhua
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