In its penultimate meeting of the year, South Korea's central bank has left its key rate unchanged... while revising down its earlier growth forecast to two-point-seven percent for 2018 due to rising economic uncertainties at home and abroad.<br />Here's our Kim Hye-sung with more. <br /> The Bank of Korea has kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at one-point-five percent for October. <br />This marks the seventh rate freeze this year... after the Bank raised its key rate for the first time in over six years last November. <br />The decision comes despite the widening U.S.-Korea rate gap, which increased to 75 basis points last month on the Fed's monetary tightening...and the soaring property prices and growing household debt in Korea, which reached 1-point-three trillion U.S. dollars, and is only slightly less than the country's GDP. <br />The central bank cited concerns over the sluggish domestic labor market, relatively low inflation and the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China for its rate decision this month.<br /> The number of newly added jobs in the country fell below the 100-thousand mark for the third consecutive month in September.<br /> South Korea's consumer price index gained one-point-nine percent on-year in September, higher than the one-point-four percent the previous month, but it remains below the central bank's two percent target.<br />Core inflation, which excludes energy and food prices, remains low at one percent. <br /> The BOK added that trade friction between Washington and Beijing, Korea's top two trading partners, is adding extra uncertainty to its export-dependent economy.<br />Kim Hyesung, Arirang News. <br />
