South Korea’s finance minister said on Tuesday second-quarter growth is expected to be “much lower” than growth seen in the first quarter of this year, Reuters reported. “The global economic slowdown and lower oil prices have negatively affected Korea’s export performance,” Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan told reporters at a press event in Seoul. Choi added domestic demand was dampened by the outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in late May. “Taking these into consideration, we project that South Korea’s real GDP growth in the second quarter will be much lower than the first quarter,” he said.
