South Korea's cardinal slope kept involvement rates unchanged arsenic wide expected connected Thursday arsenic a tumbling won reduced the scope for further easing and policymakers waited to spot however the government's steps to chill Seoul's spot marketplace play out.
The Bank of Korea's monetary argumentation committee voted to support the benchmark involvement rate unchanged astatine 2.50%, successful enactment with expectations.
It besides raised some maturation and ostentation forecasts for this twelvemonth to 1.0% and 2.1%, respectively. For 2026, the BOK sees the system expanding 1.8% and header ostentation astatine 2.1%.
Analysts person pushed backmost the adjacent predicted chopped to the archetypal 4th of adjacent twelvemonth from precocious this twelvemonth arsenic they expect policymakers to wage much attraction to a declining won and rising fiscal stableness risks from persistent lodging terms gains successful Seoul.
U.S. banal buying by section residents and pension funds pushed the won astir 4% little this quarter, making it the second-worst performing Asian currency aft the yen.
Seoul flat prices picked up steam, rising 0.2% successful the week done November 17, underscoring challenges for the BOK arsenic it considers whether to resume its rate-cutting rhythm aft 4 reductions since October past year.
"The Korean authorities has been emphasising forex stableness arsenic good arsenic spot marketplace terms curbs arsenic we tin spot from President Lee Jae Myung's remark that helium backs the BOK's October determination to pause. I don't deliberation BOK would resume cutting rates and spell against that," said Cho Yong-gu, an economist astatine Shinyoung Securities.
In October, Governor Rhee Chang-yong said 4 of the six committee members were unfastened to a complaint chopped implicit the adjacent 3 months, down from 5 erstwhile the committee past reviewed rates.
On Wednesday, concern curate Koo Yun-cheol said the authorities had met with the National Pension Service (NPS), exporters and brokerages to sermon measures to stabilise the dollar-won market, but stopped abbreviated of introducing circumstantial measures to code the situation.
Governor Rhee is owed to instrumentality questions astatine a 0210 GMT quality conference, which volition beryllium livestreamed via YouTube.
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