South Korea’s central bank kept its key interest rate steady for a sixth straight month, defying expectations of a rate cut as pressure grows to help accelerate economic recovery.
The Bank of Korea policymakers on Thursday left the benchmark inter-bank lending rate at 2.75 percent — after two cuts in July and October last year.
Fourteen of 19 analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected the central bank to cut the rate in the second policy meeting since the inauguration of new President Park Geun-Hye.
The government has recently rolled out a series of stimulus measures including policies to revive the slumping property market and is set to draw up supplementary budgets to finance such projects.
The South’s export-reliant economy — Asia’s fourth-biggest — has been hit by weakening demand from Europe and the United States, expanding just 2.0 percent in 2012, its slowest pace in three years.
The central bank recently slashed its forecast for economic growth for this year to 2.8 percent from 3.2 percent.
– Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report –
S.Korea central bank holds rates for April
