Over 3 Pct. Growth Expected in Second Half of Year

Deputy Prime Minister Jin Nyum said, “the economic growth rate in the second half of this year is likely to be over 3 percent, exceeding the previous expectation.”

It`s first time for him to reveal a possibility to raise the economic growth rate even though the economic recovery seems certain.

However, Mr. Jin expressed his intention to maintain the macro economic policies, reiterating “it would be too early to judge the current economic situation as overheated since the recovery of exports takes time even though the real estate price is rising.”

With regard to the countermeasures for real estate market, he said, “The National Tax Service completed its investigation on over 1000 suspects of real estate speculative investments and the result will be released pretty soon. The government will protect the real demanders and increase the lease apartments a great deal.”

In addition, he hinted the government would perform the measures to expand the supply and to control the speculative demands simultaneously, emphasizing that “real estates must not be tools to accumulate the property.”

Mr. Jin also revealed, “the possibility of independent survival of Hynix cannot be judged by the operating profit of Hynix in the first quarter since additional investments in the facilities are demanded and the moves of the Memory chip price are uncertain yet.”

He anticipated that Moodys recently completed its evaluation will make a decision about the credit grade of Korea by next month.

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com