This year, amid the ongoing construction industry slump in the first quarter, only the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region recorded negative growth among the five national regions. The national growth rate has fallen to around 0%.
According to the '2025 Q1 Real Gross Regional Product (GRDP)' released by the Statistics Korea on the 26th, the GRDP of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region decreased by 0.4% compared to the previous year in the first quarter of this year. This was influenced by a 19.7% decrease in construction production and a 1.2% decrease in mining and manufacturing production in the region.
For other regions' GRDP, during the same period, the Southeast region increased by 0.5%, the Honam region by 0.3%, and the metropolitan area by 0.2%. The Chungcheong region maintained its level from the previous year.
In the Southeast region, production in the service industry and mining manufacturing increased by 0.9% and 1.2%, respectively. In the Honam region, other production including electricity and gas increased by 8.6%, and mining and manufacturing production grew by 0.4%.
Although production in the construction industry decreased by 10.0% and 10.7% in the metropolitan area and Chungcheong region, respectively, robust service and mining manufacturing production offset the effects of the construction industry slump.
However, compared to last year's first quarter growth rate, this year's first quarter growth rate has generally declined. The national growth rate for the first quarter of this year was 0.1%, a decrease of 3.4 percentage points from the first quarter of last year (3.5%).
By province, the GRDP for the first quarter of this year increased compared to the previous year in seven provinces: Gyeongbuk (1.6%), Ulsan (1.4%), Seoul (1.0%), Chungbuk (0.9%), Busan (0.7%), Jeonnam (0.6%), and Jeonbuk (0.1%). This was mainly due to increased production in mining, manufacturing, and services.
In particular, Gwangju, Chungbuk, and Jeonbuk saw improvement in the mining and manufacturing economy due to increased production in electric equipment and primary metals.
In contrast, 10 provinces, including Daegu (-3.9%), Sejong (-1.5%), Incheon (-1.4%), Gangwon (-1.2%), Jeju (-1.0%), Daejeon (-0.4%), Gyeongnam (-0.3%), Gyeonggi (-0.2%), Chungnam (-0.2%), and Gwangju (-0.2%), experienced declines. This was due not only to the sluggish construction industry but also to decreases in mining and manufacturing production.
Sejong, Daegu, and Gangwon saw downturns in the mining and manufacturing economy due to reductions in semiconductors, electronic components, metal processing, and non-metallic minerals.
This regional quarterly growth rate statistics have been introduced as experimental statistics to promote timely and useful dissemination of data and have been publicly released for the first time this time.
An official from the Statistics Korea noted, "Quarterly GRDP is not currently a nationally approved statistic," and explained, "It was created to provide basic data to establish, implement, and evaluate balanced development policies by swiftly and comprehensively understanding regional economic trends."
The Statistics Korea plans to gather opinions from major economic agents such as metropolitan cities and provinces and review the stability of quarterly GRDP statistics before transitioning to nationally approved statistics in the future.