South Korea's Central Bank Blames Low Oil Prices for Weak Price Increase

South Korea's central bank on Thursday named low global oil prices as a main cause of the country's slow consumer price increase in the first half, insisting its local demands have remained strong and will continue to expand. 
In the first six months of the year, the country's consumer prices have gained only 0.9% from the same period last year, falling far short of the central bank's 2% target for the 2016-2018 period, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said. 
"This was partly because an upward pressure from the demand side remained weak due to a delay in economic recovery, but the main cause rather came from a large drop in global prices of raw materials, such as global oil prices," the BOK said in a press release, cited by Yonhap news agency. 
"However, when considering that the core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and food prices, grew 1.7% in the January-June period, the downward pressure on consumer prices from the demand side does not appear to have been too great," it added. 
The press release offered an explanation for a failure to meet the inflation target. BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol was also scheduled to hold a press briefing later in the day as the top central banker is required to do so when actual inflation strays from the target by more than 0.5 percentage point in either direction for more than six months. 
The BOK forecast consumer prices will rise 1.3% in the second half. 
The central bank revised down its outlook for consumer price inflation to 1.1% from 1.2% forecast three months earlier.