[THE INVESTOR] The head of Korea’s central bank will hold a press conference later this month to explain the reasons for the low consumer price inflation that continues to be far below the annual target, the Bank of Korea said on July 1.

The media briefing on July 14 comes as the country’s consumer prices gained only 0.9 percent in the first six months of the year, far short of the BOK’s 2-percent target for the 2016-2018 period.

While switching to a single-digit target from a target range for consumer prices inflation at the start of the year, the BOK governor had promised to hold a press conference if consumer price inflation deviates from the annual target by more than 0.5 percentage point in either direction for more than six consecutive months.

The country’s consumer price increases have remained well below 1 percent since the start of the year, gaining only 0.8 percent in June.

“At the upcoming press conference, BOK Gov. Lee Ju-yeol will personally explain the reasons the consumer price inflation fell short of the target and offer the future direction of BOK’s monetary policies to help achieve its inflation target,” the BOK press resale said.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)