South Korea’s industrial lending growth slowed down for the second consecutive quarter in the fourth quarter of last year due to rapid interest rate hikes, central bank data showed Wednesday.
Debts owed by all industries to deposit-taking financial institutions came in at 1,797.7 trillion won (1.37 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of December, up 28 trillion won (21.3 billion dollars) from three months earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The fourth-quarter growth was lower than the increases of 56.6 trillion won (43 billion dollars) in the third quarter and 68.4 trillion won (52 billion dollars) in the second quarter.—APP
