The Korean economy grew by just 1.4 percent last year.

The Bank of Korea announced on Friday that real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the fourth quarter of last year was 0.6 percent, bringing the annualized real GDP growth to 1.4 percent. With the lowest growth of the first quarter (0.3 percent), the quarterly growth rate last year showed similar recovery throughout the second quarter (0.6 percent), the third quarter (0.6 percent), and the fourth quarter (0.6 percent).

Annualized growth of 1.4 percent is in line with the government's and the BOK's revised forecasts.

However, it is the lowest growth rate in three years since 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, and the fifth-lowest on record since 1960. It is unusual for South Korea's growth rate to fall short of that of the US and Japan, which have much larger economies.

This suggests that the economy as a whole lost vitality last year and that the economy was in a bad state.