[Monitor] Restaurant, bar business revenue sees record decline in H1

Revenue generated by South Korea’s restaurants and bars in the first half of this year dropped 2.6 percent on-year, marking the biggest decline in six years, according to recent data from Statistics Korea.

Korea’s retail sales index for the service business sector that includes restaurants and bars for the January-June period stood at 95.9 points, down 2.6 percent from the previous year. This is the biggest decline for the period since the first half of 2012, when the index dropped 2.7 percent.

The retail sales index is a key economic indicator used to assess the current performance of sales generated by the retail sector based on a sampling of related businesses. One hundred points signals the average revenue for an assessed period.