<Anchor>



The Bank of Korea raised the base rate again today (25th).

It is the first time in history that interest rates have been raised four times in a row at a meeting to decide the base rate.

The Bank of Korea said that inflation is expected to rise further in the second half of this year, and said that it would continue to raise interest rates until the end of the year to catch inflation.



Today's first news, reporter Im Tae-woo.



<Reporter>



The Bank of Korea unanimously raised the base rate by 0.25 percentage points again.



Following a 0.25 percentage point increase in April and May and a 0.5 percentage point increase last month, for the first time ever, interest rate meetings have been held to decide on four consecutive rate hikes.



The base rate rose 1.25 percentage points to 2.5% for the first time in four months.



The Bank of Korea predicted that the consumer price inflation rate will continue to rise at 5.9% in the second half of this year and 4.6% in the first half of next year.



Now, firmly tighten the reins, it was predicted that our economy could be prevented from falling into a vicious cycle of high inflation and low growth.

[Lee Chang-yong / Governor of the Bank of Korea: I can tell you that we are working hard to stabilize the economy without a hard landing if we control expected inflation through interest rate



hikes and prevent it from spreading to rising wages and prices.]



Exchange rates also influenced this decision.



As the interest rate hike has the effect of raising the value of the won, it is believed that it can prevent the outflow of funds to foreign countries even a little.



[Lee Chang-yong / Governor of the Bank of Korea: This 0.25 percentage point increase in interest rates is expected to help control the exchange rate...

.]



Conversely, the household loan burden has grown.



As the base interest rate rose by 2 percentage points over the past year, household interest increased by 27.4 trillion won, which is estimated to cost an average of 1.3 million won per person.



Governor Lee Chang-yong said that the base rate could be raised to a maximum of 3% by the end of this year, which is expected to increase the household interest burden.



(Video coverage: Park Hyeon-cheol, video editing: Lee Seung-yeol)



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