South Korea April factory output falls, retail sales drop most in 5 months

SEOUL  – South Korea’s factory production and retail sales dropped in April, official data showed on Wednesday, indicating another tough quarter ahead after the economy narrowly averted a recession in the first quarter.

The country’s factory output in April fell 1.2 percent from March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, coming in slightly softer than a 1.6-percent loss tipped in a Reuters survey.

In March, output rose by 5.3 percent from February, which was the fastest gain since June 2020, according to Statistics Korea.

Output in April was down 8.9 percent from the same month a year earlier, compared with a decline of 7.6 percent in March and a year-on-year drop of 7.9 percent expected by economists. It was the biggest annual loss in three months.

The all-industry output index, which includes the manufacturing as well as services sectors, fell 1.4 percent in April over a month, marking the first monthly decline since November and the biggest drop in 14 months.

On the consumption side, retail sales dropped 2.3 percent from a month earlier, after a 0.1- percent gain in the previous month, marking the first monthly fall since January and the biggest in five months.

Such weak economic activities followed the country’s slim growth in the first quarter of this year, which was just enough to prevent Asia’s fourth-largest economy from falling into a recession.

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