South Korea follows contracting GDP with more bad news – manuf outlook ugliest in 2 yrs

Yesterday we had data on South Korea’s shrinking economy:

This morning we’ve had more worrying data, February Bank of Korea survey findings:

• Manufacturing business outlook index at s/adj 66 vs 71 for January
• Non-manufacturing
  business outlook index at s/adj 72 vs 76 for January
• Manufacturing
  business outlook index at lowest since October 2020
• Non-manufacturing
  business outlook index at lowest since December 2020

• 26.5% of manufacturing firms cited uncertain economic conditions as a major difficulty, up from 22.0% a month before
• second biggest increase in worry was centred on weak domestic demand, with 12.4% firms citing it, up from 10.8%

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South Korea is often viewed as a bellwether for the global economy, which gives these indicators wider applicability than just SK.