Thursday, February 21, 2013

South Korea Continues to Have Growth Problems:





The top chart shows the quarter to quarter percentage change of various contributors to SK GDP.  Notice that both manufacturing and construction have been experiencing negative or slow growth for most of the last 5 quarters.

The bottom chart shows the overall structure of Korean GDP going back 8 quarters.  Here we see a few interesting trends, starting with the extremely negative impact of gross capital formation, which has been negative in 6 of the last 8 quarters.  Also note that both exports and imports have been negative in 3 of the last five quarters.

Last quarter, the economy was hit by negative contributions from government spending, investment and exports, leading to a .4% growth rate.  If it wasn't for private consumption, the economy would have been in far worse shape.