SEOUL, KOREA - The Bank of Korea said Korea's year-on-year gross domestic income growth rate has surpassed that for gross domestic products for five consecutive quarters, signaling a better economy in the near future. It is generally accepted that GDI reflects street-level economic conditions better than GDP.

 

GDI is calculated as the total income payable in GDP income accounts.

 

According to the central bank on November 12, the third-quarter GDI grew 4.2 percent from the same quarter last year. Although this is slightly lower than the second quarter's 5.0 percent, it's second highest figure since the fourth quarter of 2010.

 

Chung Young-taek, head of the Bank of Korea's economic statistics division, said, "It was largely due to a rise in Koreans' purchasing power. The improvement in the terms of trade following lower international commodity prices also played a part. The bank predicted that the overall GDI growth rate for this year would surpass that of GDP by 1 percentage point (3.8 versus 2.8 percent). Next year, the bank figured, the differential would be maintained at 0.6 percentage point (4.4 vs. 3.8 percent).