SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s factory production shrank for a second month in August, missing expectations, while retail sales jumped, government data showed on Friday.
The country’s industrial output fell 1.8% on a seasonally-adjusted monthly basis, by a faster pace than 1.3% in July and 0.5% tipped in a Reuters poll.
It rose 1.0% compared with the same month a year earlier, also missing a 1.3% rise seen in the survey and marking the slowest pace since September 2021.
Output for the services sector rose 1.5% on month, while retail sales jumped 4.3%, marking the fastest gain since May 2020.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)