<Anchor>



At the same time, the Bank of Korea lowered the forecast for Korea's economic growth rate this year.

It's a frustrating story, but prices are high and the economy is likely to continue to struggle until the first half of next year.



Continuing to be reporter Kim Jung-woo.



<Reporter>



In recent years, the situation for the self-employed has not improved.



We have suffered from the corona crisis, and after social distancing is lifted, high prices are holding back our ankles.



[Lee Kang/Self-Employed: Food materials (price) are going up now, too.

It must have been about 50% higher.

The menu cannot raise the price.

We just have regular customers, so we can't raise it too much.]



According to the Bank of Korea analysis, inflation will continue until at least next year.



Inflation will peak soon, but it won't drop much.



[Lee Chang-yong / Governor of the Bank of Korea: If you think that the price level is not stable, it will be difficult.

Because what I am thinking now is that even if it peaks for the time being, it is very likely that the price level will remain in the 5% range.]



Inflation is expected to rise to 5.2% in the second half of the year as a whole.



This is the highest level in 24 years since the 1998 financial crisis.



Although it will drop below 3% in the second half of next year, it means that the price will rise again from the large increase in this year, so the high price shock is expected to continue for a considerable period of time.



[Cho Young-moo / Research Fellow, LG Economic Research Institute: Even if the inflation rate peaks this fall, the inflation rate will drop sharply even after that, considering the burden of rising import prices due to the weak won and uncertainty in international raw material prices. I think it will be difficult.]


Enlarging an image

The Bank of Korea also lowered its economic growth forecast.



This year, taking into account the sustained consumption, we lowered our forecast by only 0.1 percentage point from 2.7% to 2.6%.



However, as growth is slowing mainly in China, the growth rate is expected to drop to 1.7% in the first half of next year.



(Video coverage: Park Dae-young, video editing: Lee Seung-jin)



▶ Han-eun "I can't promise next year"...

Growing interest burden


▶ The first four consecutive rate hikes in history…

"Efforts to stabilize the economy"