South Korea's Central Bank Cuts Growth Outlook to 2.7%

South Korea's central bank on Thursday revised down its growth outlook for Asia's fourth-largest economy to 2.7% from 2.8% three months earlier, citing sluggish consumption at home and abroad. 

The quarterly revision by the Bank of Korea (BOK) came shortly after the government slashed its outlook for 2016 to 2.8% from 3.1%, state news agency (Yonhap) reported. 

"The local economy will maintain its modest growth trend on expansionary economic policies, but the bank believes local and external uncertainties surrounding the path to growth will remain high," BOK Gov. Lee Ju-yeol told a press briefing. 

South Korea's exports have fallen every single month since the start of 2015, apparently forcing the central bank to twice slash its growth outlook to 2.8% in April and again to 2.7% this week from the initial 3% expansion offered at the start of the year. 

Local spending, also a major growth engine here, gained only 0.9% on-year in the first six months of the year, falling far short of the bank's 2% target for the 2016-2018 period. 

Still, the central bank said an increase in local spending will mostly support the overall economic growth this year, noting the local economy was expected to expand 2.4% on domestic consumption, while exports were expected to contribute only 0.3 percentage point to the overall expansion. 

The bank said the local economy was expected to grow 2.4% in the second half of the year, following a 3% expansion in the first half. 

The bank also slashed its outlook for consumer price inflation to 1.1% from the 1.2% forecast three months earlier and the 1.4% one at the start of the year. 

The BOK governor was scheduled to hold a special press conference later in the day to explain the bank's failure to meet its price inflation target. 

The scheduled press conference comes under a self-imposed rule, under which the BOK governor is required to offer explanations for a deviation of price inflation from the target when the actual inflation strays from the target by more than 0.5 percentage point for more than six months. 

The BOK said the local economy was forecast to grow 2.9% in 2017, with its consumer prices expected to rise 1.9% in the same year.