Influential global investment organizations and research institutes are raising their forecasts for the growth of the Korean economy this year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) upgraded Wednesday its earlier 3.2 percent growth projection of the Korean economy this year by 0.8-percentage points, to four percent.
Prior to the IMF move, major global financial organizations such as UBS Warburg, Lehman Brothers and ABN AMRO have all raised their economic growth projections for Korea to the five percent mark.
Korean economists commented that these global organizations have been engaged in escalating the growth projection for the country, judging that the recession of the Korean economy has bottomed out, buoyed in particular by the Korean government's policies to pump up domestic consumption.
UBS Warburg pointed out that the robust growth of the Korean economy has been spearheaded by spiraling expenditures on the back of expanded investments in the construction sector and household loans. The organization recently raised its growth forecast to 5.3 percent from an earlier 1.7-percent forecast.
(Kim Young-jin, hellojin@chosun.com)
