UOB Group’s Economist Ho Woei Chen comments on the latest BoK monetary policy meeting.
Bank of Korea (BOK) kept its benchmark 7-day repo rate unchanged at 3.50% for the fifth consecutive meeting in Aug, in line with consensus and our expectations. The rate decision was unanimous and the BOK also retained its hawkish stance due to concerns that inflation will rebound and household loans growth has re-accelerated.
Similar to the previous meeting in Jul, all the six board members remained open to a further 25-bps hike to bring the terminal rate to 3.75% but their opinions on a rate hike by end-2023 differed.
The BOK maintained its 2023 GDP growth and headline CPI forecasts at 1.4% and 3.5% respectively but raised the core CPI forecast to 3.4% from 3.3%. For 2024, the central bank slightly lowered its growth forecast to 2.2% from 2.3% and kept its inflation outlook unchanged at 2.4%.
We expect the BOK to remain on hold for the rest of 2023. There are two more meetings for the rest of this year on 19 Oct and 30 Nov.
© 2000-2024. All rights reserved.
This site is managed by Teletrade D.J. LLC 2351 LLC 2022 (Euro House, Richmond Hill Road, Kingstown, VC0100, St. Vincent and the Grenadines).
The information on this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice.
The company does not serve or provide services to customers who are residents of the US, Canada, Iran, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Yemen and FATF blacklisted countries.
Making transactions on financial markets with marginal financial instruments opens up wide possibilities and allows investors who are willing to take risks to earn high profits, carrying a potentially high risk of losses at the same time. Therefore you should responsibly approach the issue of choosing the appropriate investment strategy, taking the available resources into account, before starting trading.
Use of the information: full or partial use of materials from this website must always be referenced to TeleTrade as the source of information. Use of the materials on the Internet must be accompanied by a hyperlink to teletrade.org. Automatic import of materials and information from this website is prohibited.
Please contact our PR department if you have any questions or need assistance at pr@teletrade.global.