A Quick Look At South Korea:
February headline inflation rose to 1.4% year-on-year from 1.0% in the previous month, above expectations. While inflation moved back towards the lower end of the BOK target range of 1.5%-2.5%, it was still below the December 2017 figure. Core inflation also inched up to 1.2%.
Headline CPI rose 0.8% from a month ago, the sharpest sequential rise since last year's lunar New Year holidays in Jan 2017. Food prices rose the sharpest, by 2.9%, adding 0.4pp to sequential growth, in reflection of holiday spending. Food inflation on a year-on-year basis accelerated to +2.2%, the first acceleration since Aug 2017.
Sources: Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, LTCI Economics
