Growth of Korea's consumer prices falls below 5% for first time in 10 months

A customer shops for groceries at a discount store in Seoul. [YONHAP]

Korea's on-year growth in consumer prices fell below 5 percent for the first time in 10 months, data showed Monday, amid expectations inflation will slow throughout 2023.

Consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, rose 4.8 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with 5.2 percent growth posted in January, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

Inflation stayed above 2 percent — the central bank's inflation target over the medium term — for the 23rd straight month in February.

Last month, the Bank of Korea kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.5 percent for the first time in 10 months as worries are growing that aggressive monetary tightening could hurt economic growth.

The central bank previously had carried out seven straight rate hikes since April last year to tame inflation.

Yonhap