Bank of Korea Forecasts October Inflation at Around 3%

The Bank of Korea projected that October consumer price inflation will remain at around 3%. Consumer prices refer to the overall rise in the cost of goods and services that people buy in daily life. "With the upward momentum in core items continuing, October consumer inflation is expected to stay elevated at around 3%," said Deputy Governor Lee Ji-ho. Core consumer prices exclude items such as food and energy, whose prices fluctuate seasonally.

On the 2nd, the Bank of Korea held a price assessment meeting chaired by Deputy Governor Lee Ji-ho, where it judged that although September's inflation rate edged down numerically, underlying price pressures actually intensified. "Considering the disappearance of August's temporary base effect — that is, the fact that prices in the same month last year were unusually high — the upward momentum in prices is assessed to have expanded somewhat," the deputy governor said.

According to the National Data Agency (formerly Statistics Korea), the consumer price index for September 2026 stood at 120.43 (2020=100), up 2.9% from a year earlier. That was 0.2 percentage points lower than August's 3.1%, dipping below 3%. The Bank of Korea analyzed the decline as the effect of a temporary base effect. It estimated that the base effect from temporary telecom fee discounts in August 2025 had an impact of around 0.6 percentage points on consumer inflation. On a simple calculation adjusting for this effect, underlying inflation actually rose, from 2.5% in August to 2.9% in September.

"Going forward, consumer prices are expected to sustain strong upward momentum centered on core inflation, driven by the pass-through of cost shocks and growing demand-side pressures, amid still-high uncertainty related to the Middle East war," Deputy Governor Lee said, adding, "We will continue to monitor price conditions with vigilance."