The Hyundai Research Institute said on Sept. 29 that Korea’s IT manufacturing sector has shown a higher rate of decrease in industrial output than non-IT sectors since the third quarter of last year.
“The IT manufacturing industry of Korea, which includes semiconductor and liquid crystal devices, used to lead the growth of the Korean economy as a whole based on the rapid growth of itself,” the institute explained, continuing, “However, this sector is showing negative signs amid the global economic recession these days, and the rate of decrease in output is currently over 6 percent in this segment, more than double that of the manufacturing sector as a whole.”
It added that the overall manufacturing sector itself is increasingly resorting to growth relying on inventory as well. “Inventory has been skyrocketing since the beginning of this year, with the net export’s contribution to economic growth having turned negative,” it remarked, adding, “When it comes to the second quarter of this year, an increase in inventory accounted for 1.3 percentage points of the 2.2 percent economic growth for that quarter, which means the pure economic growth was limited to 0.9 percentage points.”
Besides, the service industry is reaching a saturation point. In the second quarter, the GDP gap turned negative in the industry, too. An increase in export shipments dipped below 3 percent in the manufacturing sector during the period as well.