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IMF says time is right for higher S.Korea policy rate
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IMF says time is right for higher S.Korea policy rate
Reuters - Wednesday, July 7
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* IMF sharply upgrades 2010 growth forecast
* Finmin warns of growing external uncertainties
By Cheon Jong-woo and Kim Yeon-hee
SEOUL, July 6 - The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday the time is right for South Korea to start raising interest rates as it sharply raised the country's economic growth forecast for this year.
The IMF upgraded its growth forecast for Asia's fourth-largest economy to 5.75 percent from 4.5 percent, citing supportive macroeconomic and financial policies and a recovery in global trade.
"It is now appropriate for the Bank of Korea to start gradually raising the monetary policy rate to avoid falling behind curve," it said in a statement.
"Beginning to raise the policy rate would still leave monetary policy highly supportive of the recovery that is being anticipated in the baseline."
The statement, released after market hours, come ahead of the Bank of Korea's monthly rate review on Friday, when some analysts expect the central bank to deliver its first rate increase since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.
Bank of Korea kept the benchmark rate steady in June at a record low of 2.0 percent for the 16th consecutive month after delivering a total of 325 basis points of cuts during the downturn.
Subir Lall, the head of IMF's Asia-Pacific department, told Reuters in an interview that South Korea's "neutral" policy interest rate was around 4 percent.
South Korea has already started to withdraw some of the measures put in place during the crisis, such as not extending a debt payment guarantee and terminiating an emergency currency swap agreements with the United States.
STRONG H2 OUTLOOK
The world's ninth-biggest exporter posted a record trade surplus in June, powered by brisk shipments of electronics goods and cars, data showed last week.
The Finance Ministry lifted its growth forecasts for 2010 last month and announced a gradual return of economic policy to pre-crisis settings, reinforcing investors' bets that interest rates will start rising soon. [ID:nTOE65N03N]
But the finance ministry on Tuesday warned of growing external uncertainties and said it would strengthen monitoring of global developments.
"Although our economy is maintaining a recovery trend... concerns about global economic recovery have been mounting," the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in its monthly Green Book report of preliminary economic indicators.
In June, investment in plants and equipment was expected to have expanded and the current account surplus rose to an estimated $5.5 billion, against May's $3.83 billion before seasonal considerations, the Green Book report added.
Department sales rose 10.8 percent in June over a year earlier, compared with 7.5 percent in May, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Lall said the IMF backed the country's recent measures to curb rapid shifts in capital flows that were linked to short-term foreign debt and posed a risk to the world's ninth-biggest exporter. [ID:nTOE65C00R]
"We support the macro prudential measures that can make banks even more stronger against changes in global deleveraging," he said.
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