The Bank of Korea (BOK) said on the 28th that if the growth rate of semiconductor export volumes expands from 16% last year to the mid-20% range this year, the growth rate could reach 3.1%.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) released its Economic Outlook the same day and raised this year's growth rate forecast to 2.6% from 2.0%. This assumes the semiconductor export volume growth rate stays at a level similar to last year's 16%. For next year, it projected the export volume growth rate to be around 10% and the growth rate to be 2.1%. It forecast consumer price inflation at 2.7% this year and 2.3% next year.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) said uncertainty around the assumptions in this outlook is high and presented both an optimistic scenario and a pessimistic scenario. The optimistic scenario assumes the growth rate of semiconductor export volumes expands to the mid-20% range this year and remains in the mid-10% range next year. In this case, it saw this year's growth rate rising by 0.5 percentage point to 3.1%. It also expected next year's growth rate to increase by 0.3 percentage point to 2.4%. In this case, it projected consumer price inflation to rise by 0.1 percentage point each this year and next year to 2.8% and 2.4%, respectively.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) viewed the pessimistic scenario as one in which the growth rate of semiconductor export volumes slows to the low-10% range this year and declines to single digits next year. In this case, it projected this year's growth rate to fall by 0.3 percentage point to 2.3% and next year's to drop by 0.2 percentage point to 1.9%. It forecast consumer price inflation to hold at 2.7% this year but to edge down by 0.1 percentage point to 2.2% next year.