S.Korea's BSI hits 30-month low amid poor business sentiment

The economic outlook by companies is worsening given lingering global uncertainty, with the business outlook for February at its lowest level in two and a half years due to fears of a deeper economic downturn.

A Business Survey Index (BSI) report released on Thursday by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) on the nation's 600 largest companies in sales said the BSI for next month was 83.1, the lowest in two years and six months since 81.6 in August 2020.

The BSI fell under the benchmark of 100 for the 11th consecutive month in a streak that began in April last year with 99.1.

The BSI is an indicator of business sentiment. A BSI of over 100 means many companies believe that the economy will improve from the previous month, but a figure under 100 means such companies think the opposite.

By sector, the February BSI was 81.4 for manufacturing and 85.1 for non-manufacturing, the ninth consecutive month that the indexes for both sectors fell under 100 since June last year.

No sub-sector in manufacturing had a BSI of over 100.

Including the nation's three major exports of chips, petroleum products and vehicles, sectors like electronics and communications, oil refining and chemicals, and cars and other transportation stayed sluggish for the fifth consecutive month since October last year.

Among non-manufacturing sub-sectors, only electricity, gas and water did not fall under the baseline with a BSI of 100. Information and communications suffered the biggest decline of 30.9 points with a BSI of 75 amid the aftermath of the sluggish global IT industry.

Write to Mi-Hyun Jo at mwise@hankyung.com