S.Korea's economy slows down for 5 months: think tank

SEOUL, March 11 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's economy slowed down for five months in a row due to weak investment and export, the country's state-run economic think tank said Monday.

The Korea Development Institute (KDI) said in its monthly economic assessment report that the economy maintained a slowdown on investment and export weakness, keeping its negative evaluation for the fifth consecutive month.

While the slump in facility investment and investment in the construction sector deepened further, an overall export worsened on soft shipment of semiconductor and oil product, the KDI noted.

export, which accounts for about half of the export-driven economy, kept sliding for three months through February.

For the first 10 days of this month, the outbound shipment posted a double-digit reduction compared with a year earlier.

The KDI forecast that there could be no positive factor to reverse the current downward trend in export as the global economic slowdown is expected to go on.