Korea’s GDP Ranking Falls to Twelfth

Korea’s Gross Domestic Product was recorded at $787.5 billion last year, making the country the world’s 12th largest economy. It is one step down from the year earlier.

The country’s economic growth rate also came down from fifth place in 2004 to seventh among 30 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The rate was 4.7% in 2004 and 4.0 % in 2005.

The National Statistical Office released a set of data called, “A Statistical Glance at Korea in the World” on Monday. According to the new data Korea’s GDP last year fell behind that of Brazil, which reached 796.1 billion dollars, ranking 12th among 94 countries surveyed. Brazil had ranked 15th in 2004.

Korea’s GDP in 2005 is a sixteenth of that of the U.S, which ranks first, and a sixth of that of Japan, which comes second. The U.S. recorded 12.487 trillion dollars and Japan recorded 4.559 trillion dollars of GDP.

However, thanks to the strong won, Korea could improve its ranking in per capita Gross National Income (GNI) from 30th to 29th among 61 countries surveyed. Korea’s GNI was 16,291 dollars in 2005, up from 14,193 dollars in 2004.

Luxembourg remained in first place recording 65,228 dollars of GNI for the two consecutive year, putting the U.S. (41,802 dollars) and Japan (36,431 dollars) in fifth and twelfth place, respectively.

The growth rate of Korea’s consumer price index in 2005 was 2.7%, down by 0.9% from 3.6% in 2004. The figure is roughly the average of OECD members, which stood at 2.6%. The index was -0.3% in Japan, continuing their minus growth since 1999.

Korea’s total population is 48,497,000, ranking 25th. The number of elementary school students per class was 29, which was larger than that in advanced countries such as England, where the number was only 18. The number of Internet users out of 100 was 66 in 2004, remaining the third since 2003.

Meanwhile, according to the Bank of Korea, the average household debt exceeded 34 million won for the first time.

The BOK released “Household Confidence Trend in the 2nd Quarter” on Monday and announced that household financial debt as of late June this year was 545.496 trillion won, being an all time high number and a 10.4 % year-on-year surge.

Household financial debt is the sum of loan from financial institutions, credit and installment purchase, and if this number is divided by the number of households (15,988,274), the average debt per household is 34,118,754 won. The figure is up by 1.04 million won from 33,072,187 won at the end of March.

Loans from financial institutions reached 516.662 trillion won and installment purchase through credit card firms was 27.965 trillion won.

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