Just coming in... for the first time, South Korea's consumer prices did not rise at all in August compared to a year ago.
For more, we have our Yoon Jung-min on the line.
Jung-min, tell us more.
Sure, Conn-young. Statistics Korea announced this morning that overall consumer prices remained unchanged in August compared to last year.
That's never happened in all the months data have been collected since 1965.
And since January,... consumer inflation has stayed below 1 percent.
The data show it was held down by lower prices for agricultural and fishery products and oil.
In particular, agricultural goods fell some 11 percent on-year due to relatively stable weather conditions this summer.
Oil prices were down more than 6 percent... driven by a drop in prices internationally and a temporary tax cut on fuel.
We're also hearing this morning that the Bank of Korea has lowered its calculation of growth in the second quarter. Can you tell us more about that?
You're right. For the April to June period, the BOK revised the country's GDP growth down to 1 percent compared the previous quarter to some 379 billion U.S. dollars.
Now, that's slightly lower than what the bank initially predicted.
The central bank mainly attributed the slow growth to sluggish exports and less government spending.
By sector, growth in agriculture and fisheries fell more than 3 percent,...while manufacturing grew slightly over 1 percent.
This morning, the central bank also said real gross national income increased by zero-point-2 percent on-quarter from April to June.
That figure was slightly up due mostly to an increase in GDP... despite a fall in exports.
That's all from me at this hour. Conn-young.