The Bank of Korea announced on Wednesday that South Korea’s potential growth rate is presumed to have slipped to the low three-percent range.
 
Kang Hwan-koo, who heads the central bank’s research department, estimated in a report that South Korea’s potential growth rate for the period between 2015 and 2018 stands between an average of three and three-point-two percent a year. 

Kang said the drop in the nation’s potential growth rate since 2000 apparently resulted from social structural changes, including an aging population, and economic structural problems, including a slump in investment and stagnation in service industries’ productivity.
 
The nation’s potential growth rate was estimated to have fallen from the four-point-eight and five-point-two percent range between 2001 and 2005, to three-point-eight percent between 2006 and 2010. From 2011 to 2014, the rate was estimated to stand between three-point-two and three-point-four percent.
 
Potential growth refers to the rate of economic growth that can be achieved by utilizing production factors, including capital and labor, to the utmost without setting off inflationary pressure.