SEOUL, March 16 (Reuters) - One of the Bank of Korea's
board members said on Thursday that core inflation should be
watched more closely than the headline indicator for the time
being to better assess changes in inflation pressure.
"It would be good news if inflation (eases) along the Bank
of Korea's expectations, but I personally think we need to watch
core inflation more closely in the future," Park Ki-young said
during a discussion session with reporters.
The session was arranged for reporters on the subject of
communication strategies by the central bank, but he answered a
few questions at the end of the session.
He made the remarks after saying that even if the consumer
price index (CPI) growth slows by a big margin in the near
future, it would be because of the disappearance of some factors
that played a role a year earlier.
He said he had not thought about a turn in the central
bank's monetary policy stance toward easing from the current
tightening mode.
The South Korean central bank's seven-member monetary policy
board sets the policy interest rate at eight
meetings a year. It held the rate steady at 3.50% at the latest
meeting in February after a year of successive increases.
South Korea's headline consumer inflation for February eased
to its slowest pace in 10 months, at 4.8% year-on-year. Annual
core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices,
inched down to 4.0%, from 4.1% a month before, and hit the
lowest since August, suggesting easing underlying price
pressures.
(Reporting by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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