S. Korea unlikely to meet inflation target this year: BOK policymaker

SEOUL, Sept. 21 (Yonhap) -- A policymaker at South Korea's central bank said Wednesday that the Bank of Korea (BOK) will have a hard time meeting its inflation target of 4 percent this year due to growing price pressure.
The BOK has tried to keep the country's annual inflation between 2 and 4 percent for 2010-2012, but high oil and food prices and sustained economic growth are putting upward pressure on inflation.
"It will be not easy (for the BOK) to achieve its inflation target this year," Lim Seung-tae, a BOK board member, said in a meeting with reporters.
His remarks came as South Korea's consumer prices jumped a whopping 5.3 percent in August from a year earlier, quickening from 4.7 percent growth in July.
Consumer inflation surpassed the upper limit of the BOK's inflation target range for the eight straight month in August. Despite growing inflationary risks, the BOK froze the key rate at 3.25 percent for the third consecutive month in September due to high external economic uncertainty.
Lim said that the European and the U.S. economies lost their growth momentum, indicating that the global economy would recover at a slower pace.