Seoul: South Korea’s industrial production remained unchanged from a month earlier in August, while retail sales lost ground to mark the largest on-month fall in 18 months, data showed Tuesday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, retail sales, a gauge of private spending, went down 2.4 percent from a month earlier in August, marking the steepest on-month fall since February 2024, while industrial output remained flat compared with the previous month, as per data compiled by Statistics Korea.

Both industrial output and retail sales had gone up for two consecutive months prior to August. Facility investment fell 1.1 percent in August. A 2.4 percent increase in the production of the mining and manufacturing sector, considered the backbone of the economy, was offset by a 0.7 percent fall in the service sector.

In the mining and manufacturing sector, automobile production surged 21.2 percent on-month, and that of medical products added 11 percent. Such increases were partially offset by a 3.1 percent decline in semiconductor production. Retail sales of semidurable goods, such as apparel, rose 1 percent, while sales of nondurable goods, including cosmetics, lost 3.9 percent, and those of durable goods, such as home appliances, fell 1.6 percent. Facility investment showed a mixed performance. Investment in transportation equipment fell by 6 percent, offsetting gains in machinery investment.