South Korea’s economy shrank for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic last quarter, an outcome that supports the case for at least pausing a cycle of interest rate hikes to tackle inflation.
Gross domestic product contracted 0.4% from the previous three months as exports fell and consumer spending edged down, the Bank of Korea said Thursday. The result matched a Bloomberg survey of economists. From a year earlier, the economy still expanded by 1.4%.
