The South Korean economy posted an on-year contraction of 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2009, the worst performance in 11 years, amid the prolonged global downturn, the central bank said on Friday.

According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), South Korea's on-year growth rate in the country's gross domestic product (GDP) for the final quarter of 2009 stood at negative 4.3 percent, continuing the previous quarter's downward move of 3.4 percent annual decline.

The on-year economic contraction in the first quarter marked the worst since the fourth quarter of 1998 when the figure hit negative 6.0 percent, the BOK said.

Meanwhile, the on-quarter growth rate in the January-March period logged a 0.1 percent rise, compared with a sharp fall of 5.1 percent posted in the previous quarter.

Both annual and monthly growth rates for the first quarter stood below the BOK's earlier forecasts, on-year fall of 4.2 percent and on-month growth of 0.2 percent, according to the BOK.

The data comes despite the government and the BOK have put efforts to pull the economy out of contraction by unveiling a series of economic stimulus packages, including a record 28.9 trillion-won (US$21.5 billion) extra budget, and cutting the key interest rate to the lowest in history.

"The Korean economy is still on a downturn trend although a sharp decline in economic activity eased considerably in the first quarter," an official at the BOK said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2009)