South Korea's consumer prices grew at the slowest pace in 14 years in October, affected by falls in costs of farming products, a government report showed Friday.
The country's consumer price index rose 0.7 percent on-year in October, decelerating from a 0.8 percent on-year gain tallied in the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea.
The October figure marked the slowest consumer price growth since July 1999 when it increased 0.3 percent. It was also the second straight month that the consumer price growth stayed below 1 percent.
The core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and food prices, rose 1.6 percent on-year in October, the report showed.
Prices of fresh food, including fruits and vegetables, fell 11.1 percent on-year in October. In particular, prices of vegetables plunged 17.8 percent from a year earlier, the report showed.
The "livelihood price" index, which measures the costs of key daily necessities, also inched down 0.3 percent from a year earlier and fell 0.6 percent from a month earlier.
The latest data comes amid cautious expectations that the country's economy is showing some signs of picking up following a prolonged slow growth trend.
The country's gross domestic product grew 1.1 percent in the third quarter from three months earlier. This marked the fastest quarterly growth since a 1.3 percent on-quarter advance in the first quarter of 2011.
The government earlier predicted that the country's consumer prices will grow 1.7 percent this year and the growth rate will rise to 2.8 percent next year. (Yonhap News)
