South Korea’s economic growth slowed in the final quarter of last year as a sharp slump in construction investment, coupled with a pullback in exports, outweighed modest gains in consumption.
The economy expanded 1.5% in the October to December period from a year earlier, according to the central bank’s advance estimates, missing economists’ forecast of 1.9%. That compared with 1.8% growth in the prior quarter, when the economy expanded at its fastest pace in over a year.
On a quarterly basis, gross domestic product contracted 0.3%, marking the steepest slowdown since the fourth quarter of 2022. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.1% expansion.
For the full year, South Korea’s economy grew 1%, its slowest annual expansion since 2020, when output contracted 0.7% during the pandemic.
Construction investment shrank 3.9% from the previous quarter as both building and civil engineering activity declined, according to data from the Bank of Korea. Facilities investment fell 1.8%, led by a drop in transportation equipment.
