Seoul, Korea - Industrial output in January rose 0.1 percent from the previous month, continuing a positive growth pace for four consecutive months.

 

The last month's manufacturing activity remained at almost the same level as the previous month due to fewer business days as the Lunar New Year's Day holidays fell in January this year. But the output in the construction and public administration segments increased by a large margin, raising the whole mining and manufacturing output level up more than 1 percent month on month.

 

According to a report "January 2014 Industrial Activity Trend" published by the National Statistical Office on February 28, mining and manufacturing output has risen 0.1 percent from the previous month. Although the figure is much lower than that recorded in December last year at 2.4 percent, this represents a positive rally for four straight months.

 

The whole industry output was led by construction (9.7%) and public administration (4.2%). In terms of manufacturing output, semiconductors and parts (-4.7%) and electric equipment (-5.1%) saw their output decline while automobiles (6.7%) and audio, visual, and communications (9.5%) gained quite a large amount. Overall, the manufacturing output remained at the same level as the previous month, with the year-on-year output rising 4.2 percent.

 

Jeon Baik-geun, National Statistical Office manager responsible for industrial statistics, said, "During the month of January, the overall manufacturing showed somewhat lackluster performance as the number of business days was fewer and domestic semiconductor production was reduced as the Wuxi plant of SK Hynix began operating at normal capacity after a fire. But mining and manufacturing output has continued its rally for four months in a row."