President Moon Jae-in said in his New Year's message, "Korea is expected to enter into the list of the world's 10th largest GDP countries and its per capita GNI is likely to surpass that of G7 country.”
It is estimated that Korea's per capita gross national income (GNI) exceeded that of Italy last year.
Korea's per capita income decreased to around $30,000, but the index of European countries that were hit by the COVID-19 has retreated more.
According to the Bank of Korea on Jan. 12, Korea's nominal GNI per capita is estimated to be around $31,000 last year, slightly down from $32,115 in 2019.
This is because the actual growth rate has fallen to minus, as well as the nominal growth rate has been lowered to the early 0% range, and the won-dollar exchange rate has also risen. However, Korea's per capita GNI ranking itself is expected to rise.
According to the World Bank (WB) calculated by applying the average exchange rate for the previous three years, Italy's per capita GNI in 2019 was $34,530, slightly ahead of Korea's $33,790 that year.
In particular, given that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicted Italy's nominal growth rate to be -7.9%, which is significantly lower than Korea's 0.1%, Italy's per capita GNI is likely to be smaller than Korea's.
Although the indicators have yet to be released, if this prediction becomes a reality, it will be the first time that Korea's per capita GNI will be the first to surpass one of the G7 countries (US, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada).
Korea's economic scale ranking is also expected to rise to 10th in the world, surpassing Brazil and Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund's report on the global economic outlook, Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) will be 1.58 trillion dollars in 2020, the 10th largest in the world.
