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SKorea cuts key interest rate amid recession fears
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AFP - 1 hour 1 minute ago
SEOUL (AFP) - - South Korea's central bank Thursday cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points to a record low 2.0 percent in an attempt to avert the country's first recession for a decade.
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The Bank of Korea reduced the benchmark seven-day repo rate at its monthly policy meeting. The rate has now been cut by 3.25 percentage points since last October.
"Domestic economic activity has contracted at a faster pace across the board, including production, demand and employment," the central bank said in a statement.
"The downside risk to growth is likely to increase due to a sharp fall in global economic growth and contraction in domestic demand."
On Tuesday new finance minister Yoon Jeung-Hyun warned that Asia's fourth largest economy will probably shrink two percent this year, the first annual contraction since the East Asian financial crisis in 1998.
Yoon, who also forecast job losses of around 200,000 this year, said the government would submit a supplementary budget to parliament by the end of March to try to stimulate domestic spending.
"The economy is contracting at a faster than expected pace and highly likely to post negative growth this year," central bank governor Lee Seong-Tae told a press conference, adding that more rate cuts are possible.
A series of recent grim economic figures shows the export-driven economy headed for recession as overseas demand for its ships, autos, microchips and electronics products dries up.
The economy shrank 5.6 percent quarter-on-quarter in the last three months of 2008, the largest contraction since the first quarter of 1998.
Exports in January dropped by a third year-on-year, the steepest decline since Seoul started announcing monthly tallies in 1980.
The economy shed more than 100,000 jobs in the year to January as the global economic downturn worsened, the biggest contraction for over five years.
The International Monetary Fund has predicted that the economy will shrink four percent this year before rebounding in 2010.
The government announced Thursday it will expand loan guarantees to help smaller businesses and exporters cope with a liquidity shortfall.
The Financial Services Commission said after an emergency economic policy meeting chaired by President Lee Myung-Bak that the support will be maintained until the end of the year.
The aim is to help firms secure fresh loans from banks, which are still nervous about lending to small businesses despite the series of interest rate cuts.
The measures call for state-run credit insurers to guarantee up to 100 percent payment on loans that do not exceed 10 billion won to small and medium-size firms, exporters and people trying to start businesses.
At present, the maximum coverage is 95 percent with the protection ceiling set at three billion won.
"The measures are an exceptional step that include everything that was ever asked for by the business community," the president was quoted as saying by his spokesman.
 
 
 
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