BOK chief vows to maintain restrictive policy until inflation firmly on target

Bank of Korea Gov. Shin Hyun-song said the central bank would continue its restrictive policy "until we are confident that inflation is converging stably toward the target level."

Shin made the remarks at a monetary policy direction press conference Thursday morning, adding that "how aggressively we respond will be decided based on incoming data."

He said the bank would closely watch next week's second-quarter national income statistics, including how much the economy grew, whether gross domestic income continued to expand, whether first-quarter figures came in at historically unusual levels, and how strongly exports were performing.

Shin also said the bank would pay close attention to July inflation data due Aug. 4, including core inflation and lifestyle price indices. On financial stability, he noted that the exchange rate remains elevated and that real estate and household lending are also under close watch.