S. Korea's credit card spending slows sharply in Q1

SEOUL, April 7 (Yonhap) -- Growth of South Koreans' credit card spending slowed sharply in the first quarter from three months earlier as consumers tightened their purse strings amid an economic slowdown, a creditors association said Tuesday.

Cardholders racked up bills worth 75.4 trillion won (US$57 billion) in the
January-March period, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Credit
Finance Association of Korea.
The first-quarter growth figure was down sharply from an 11.3 percent annual
increase for last quarter. The growth rate hovered around 20 percent in the first
nine months of 2008.
The steep fall cames as cardholders curtailed spending due to the continued
fallout from a global credit crisis, it said.
"Due to a stagnant real economy, card spending is forecast to remain sluggish for
a long period," an association official said.
Hit hard by plunging exports and flaccid domestic demand, the South Korean
economy, Asia's fourth-largest, is feared to lapse into the first recession in 11
years. The economy shrank 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 from three
months earlier and is widely expected to have posted negative growth in the first
quarter.