SEOUL, KOREA - Economists are watching intently whether the Korean economy can get out of the low-growth trap for the past eight quarters. Just ahead of the second-quarter GDP figure announcement by the Bank of Korea on July 25, quite a number of analysts predicted that the economic growth rate would be in excess of the 1.0-percent level.

 

A bond market observer said on the 22nd, "Predictions that the growth rate would finally move over and above 1 percent are spreading widely." If the predictions indeed materialize, expectations on further recovery would catch on.

 

Several analysts with major securities houses said the same thing. Shinhan Investment Corp. said recently that the economy would have grown 1.3 percent in the second quarter. The estimates by IM Investment & Securities and NH Investment & Securities were also in the range of 1.1 percent.

 

Since the first quarter last year, the growth rate has hovered below 1 percent. It was 0.8 percent in the first quarter in 2012, followed by 0.3, 0.0, and 0.3 percent in the remaining quarters of the year. The first-quarter growth rate this year was 0.8 percent, raising the hope of a full-blown recovery.