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The average annual income for a Korean citizen last year came in at nearly 23-thousand U.S.
dollars, an all-time high. And although the figure has nearly doubled since 2002, the
finance ministry has cause for concern.Our Kim Ji-yeon explains.
Korea's per-capita gross national income,... the average annual income for a Korean citizen...
hit its highest level in 10 years last year.The Ministry of Strategy and Finance on Sunday
announced that the nation's per-capita GNI was 22-thousand-720 U.S. dollars in 2012.
Based on the assumption that the country's nominal gross domestic product expanded by
3-point-2 percent, the ministry estimated last year's nominal GNI of 127-point-7 trillion
won,... roughly 118-point-7 billion U.S. dollars, and then divided that amount with the Korean
population, roughly 50 million four thousand.
This year's per-capita GNI nearly doubled from the amount recorded in 2002, when it
stood at 12-thousand-100 dollars.
However the estimate has increased by one percentage point from the per-capita GNI of
2011.This means that people's livelihoods improved at a slower pace than the rate of
the country's economic growth last year.
In comparison, between the years 2003 and 2007, Korea's per-capita GNI rose more than
10 percentage points each year from the previous year. Shin Min-young of the LG Research Institute
in an interview with KBS News... attributed last year's relatively low rate of increase
to the country's sluggish growth and the appreciation of the Korean won.
However the expert projected that Korea's per-capita GNI will increase at a faster pace
in the future, and that it will hit the 30-thousand dollar mark by the year 2016,... assuming
an appreciation of the local currency by five percentage points each year.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.