SoKor’s second-quarter GDP to hit sharpest level in over 20 years

The second quarter likely saw South Korea’s economy hitting its sharpest downturn in over two decades, a Reuters survey showed on Tuesday. This was mainly from the pandemic dragging the labor market, consumer spending, and global export demand.

From April to June, Asia’s fourth-largest economy likely declined 2.0% from a year earlier. This came to be the economy’s sharpest downturn since 1998, following a 1.4% growth monitored in the first quarter of 2020.

On a quarterly basis, gross domestic product is expected to have contracted a seasonally adjusted 3.3% in the same period. This followed after recording a total of 1.3% decline in the first quarter of 2020, tallying its largest quarterly drop since 2008.

Meanwhile, shipments dropped a total of 20.3% in the second quarter. Though this came milder than the 1.8% drop seen in the first quarter, it was the weakest figure in 11 years.