The Bank of Korea (BOK) decided to maintain the call rate (the nation`s benchmark short-term interest rate) at around five percent in the Monetary Policy Committee yesterday.
BOK Governor Chon Chol-Hwan told that ``the BOK will freeze the one-day call rate because the increase rate of the consumer price has remained over 5 percent for two months``.
Chon, however, emphasized that the BOK will flexibly manage the monetary policy, considering that the object economy has been inactive in overall because the exports and investments have decreased in a large scale in spite of the slow increase of the consumption.
Gov. Chon foresaw that in spite of the factors to increase the consumer price such as the rise of public utility charges and the oil price hike, the consumer price will stabilize and drop to the 3 percent range in the second half, because inflationary pressure is not that big in both demand and supply sides.