South Korea's latest economic indicators, hit hard by the ongoing global financial turmoil, are dropping faster than they did during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the Korea Herald reported on Wednesday.

Datas from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the National Statistical Office (NSO) and the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed that the country's output, exports and consumption and number of jobs plummeted in the last two month of 2008.

The government data showed that production in the mining and manufacturing industries shrank 14.1 percent in November from a year ago, the worst since the government began compiling such data in 1970. In October the figure marked 2.3 percent contraction. The decline was steeper than a 0.4 percent contraction in December 1997 and a 7.7 percent contraction in January 1998.

Factories operated 68 percent of their capacity in November, down from 80.6 percent a year ago, government data showed. It was the lowest level since 65.7 percent in August 1998.

Exports dropped 19.5 percent in November and further plunged 29 percent to 12.47 billion U.S. dollars during the first 20 days of January.

Consumption fell to the worst level in more than a decade. The November sales of consumer goods shrank 5.9 percent, the lowest since minus 7.3 percent in December 1998. The South Korean economy lost 12,000 jobs in December from a year ago, marking the first contraction since October 2003 and raising the nation's jobless rate to 3.3 percent, according to the NSO.

The nation's economy shrank 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter last year from a year ago, which was the worst quarter GDP contraction in 11 years.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2009)