South Korea's economy grew 2.3 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter, the central bank said Thursday. Gross domestic product in the quarter was up 1.1 from the first three months of the year, the biggest quarterly jump for more than two years, the Bank of Korea said in preliminary figures quoted by DPA. The pick-up was partly due to an increase in government spending of 2.5 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter, after growing just 1.2 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the bank said. The first quarter showed 1.5 per cent year-on-year growth, and 0.8 per cent from the previous three-month period. Exports in Asia's fourth-largest economy were 1.5 per cent up for the April-June period from the first quarter, while imports increased 1 per cent. The bank recently improved its prediction for growth for the year to 2.8 per cent, up from 2.6 per cent. It also raised the yearly forecast for 2014 to 4 per cent, from 3.8 per cent.
