OECD raises S. Korea’s growth prospect for 2020 to negative 0.8%

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has raised South Korea’s economic growth prospect for this year to a negative 0.8 percent, which is the highest level among 37 OECD member countries.

The OECD predicted that South Korea’s economy will record shrink 0.8 percent this year without the re-spread of COVID-19 in the OECD Economic Surveys: Korea 2020 released on Tuesday. It is 0.4 percent higher than the figure announced by the organization in June and also the highest among OECD member countries.

The OECD publishes a comprehensive analytic report of each member country’s economic situation every two years. This year, the subjects included the U.S., Slovenia, Greece, and South Korea with the last being the only country projected to maintain such a decent economic outlook.

The OECD cited South Korea’s stable control of COVID-19 as a reason to raise its projected economic growth rate. The report read South Korea has successfully stopped the spread of the virus and minimized its economic impact. The country’s export will worsen due to the slowdown of the global economy, but private consumption and investment will revive thanks to its stable disease control efforts, driving the country’s growth. In the case of COVID-19 re-spread, however, the country’s economy is projected to shrink by 2.0 percent, according to the report.

“The recent sharp rise of the minimum wage may have had an impact on small and medium-sized businesses’ labor costs,” said the OECD. “Rigid regulations will become the hurdles to the spread of advanced technologies.”


Choong-Hyun Song balgun@donga.com