Korea economy grows 7.2% in Q2

May have entered ‘expansionary’ phase, central bank official says

Korea’s economy again beat growth forecasts, pulling off 7.2 percent growth on-year in the second quarter. 

Strong exports and reviving domestic demand lifted the country’s gross domestic product 1.5 percent from a quarter earlier in the April-June period, the Bank of Korea said Monday. From a year ago, GDP was 7.2 percent larger. 

First and second quarters combined, the economy has grown 7.6 percent, its best first-half performance in nearly 10 years. 

“Korea’s economy, continuing a sharper than expected rebound, may have achieved more than just recovering to the pre-crisis level and may have entered an expansionary phase,” BOK’s director general Kim Myung-kee told reporters, explaining the data. 

The second-quarter GDP growth was higher than forecasts of officials and many private economists and underpinned economic confidence in Korea, as the country rolls back emergency measures taken to fight a global financial crisis. 

Earlier this month, the BOK estimated the quarterly growth rate at 1.2 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than Monday’s reading. It has said that growth for the full of 2010 would reach 5.9 percent.