SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s economy grew 0.3% in the first quarter from the previous quarter, revised central bank data showed on Friday, matching its earlier estimate in April.
The expansion in the country’s gross domestic product during the January-March period followed a 0.3% contraction in the last three months of 2022, which was the first quarterly fall since the second quarter of 2020.
The biggest contributor was private consumption, which increased by a revised 0.6% quarter-on-quarter, while facilities and construction investments were 5.0% lower and 1.3% higher, respectively. Exports rose 4.5%, while imports climbed 4.2%.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy grew 0.9% in the first quarter over a year earlier, revised up from the previous estimate of 0.8%. It was the weakest annual increase since the last quarter of 2020.
In 2022, South Korea grew 2.6%, after a revised 4.3% jump in 2021, which was the fastest yearly growth in 11 years.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee and Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Ed Davies and Jacqueline Wong)
