S. Korea’s population mobility rises for 2nd month in October

SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s population mobility rose for the second consecutive month due to higher housing transactions, statistical office data showed Wednesday.
The number of those who moved residence inside and outside the same province or city grew 2.8 percent over the year to 521,000 in October after gaining 3.1 percent in the previous month, according to Statistics Korea.
It was attributed to higher home transactions, affected by lower borrowing costs. The country’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent in October.
The population mobility rate, which measures the number of people relocating to fresh homes for every 100 people, added 0.4 percentage points to 12.1 percent last month, keeping an upward trend for the second straight quarter.
Despite the continued expansion, population mobility had roughly been on the decline amid the rapidly aging population. ■