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SEOUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) - South Korea said on Wednesday industrial output rose a seasonally adjusted 2.3 percent in December from November, beating forecasts of a slowdown, powered by strong growth in automobile and chip production.
The data indicated that subdued consumption, battered by a string of measures aimed at cooling the red-hot real estate market and curbing household debt, had yet to take a toll on producers.
The provisional month-on-month rise compared with a 0.8 percent increase in November and came in sharply higher than a forecast for a 0.6 percent drop in a Reuters survey of 10 economists conducted on Monday.
"Robust growth in automobiles and semiconductors contributed a lot to the month-on-month output rise in December," said the National Statistical Office (NSO) in a statement.
But wholesale and retail sales dropped 2.3 percent in December from November, reflecting the measures introduced last October to keep lid on consumer sentiment.
Consumer confidence has recently dipped in South Korea as a crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme and a possible U.S. attack on Iraq cast a pall over the global economy.
"A slowdown in consumption will certainly hurt the supply side with some time lag," said Lee Soo-hee, economist at Korea Economic Research Institute.
Year-on-year, seasonally unadjusted output rose 9.5 percent in December versus November's 7.2 percent rise and a 2.5 rise a year earlier, the NSO said.
Industrial output was up 7.3 percent in all of 2002, compared with a 1.3 percent rise a year ago, it said.