South Korea's central bank on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in seven months, joining government efforts to boost the export-reliant economy as manufacturers such as Hyundai Motor Co. face tougher competition from Japanese rivals boosted by the weakening yen.

As South Korea's low interest rate has contracted their profits, Korean banks are targeting rich people in Southeast Asia and China as new income sources.

South Korea's industrial output fell for a third straight month in March as carmakers struggled in the face of a weaker yen, which benefits their Japanese rivals, official data showed Tuesday.

South Korea posted its biggest current account surplus in four months in March, bolstered by robust exports of mobile devices and other high-tech products, the central bank said Monday.

South Korea's economy grew at its fastest pace in two years in the first quarter of this year as exports bounced back despite competition from a weak yen, the Bank of Korea said Thursday.

The South Korean entrepreneurs who invested up to 10 years and millions of dollars in the Kaesong industrial complex, a symbol of economic collaboration between the Koreas that is now shuttered by the North, have little more than hope to cling to as assembly lines sit idle day after day.

The South Korean government proposed a US$15.3 billion stimulus Tuesday to boost slowing growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

South Korea's central bank slightly lowered its growth forecast for Asia's fourth-largest economy on Thursday but left its key interest rate unchanged.

South Korea's unemployment rate fell in March after a number of job seekers left the market for further education or stopped looking for work, state data showed Wednesday.

Small- and mid-sized South Korean companies running factories in the sole inter-Korean industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong are being hit hardest by the stoppage of their production lines in the industrial park.