Seoul City GRDP Growth of 3.6% in 2018... Highest in 8 Years

Seoul City GRDP Report Released... Per Capita GRDP Rises by 2.29 Million KRW to 43.66 Million KRW
Gangnam-gu Reaches 69.086 Trillion KRW, 21.6 Times That of Gangbuk-gu... Regional Disparity Widens
Growth Rates by Autonomous District: Seongdong-gu and Songpa-gu Lead... Dobong-gu Shrinks by 0.1%

On the 20th, with clear autumn weather, a blue sky stretched over downtown Seoul as seen from Namsan in Seoul. Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] In 2018, Seoul's Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) grew by 3.6% to 423.742 trillion KRW, marking the highest level in eight years. The per capita GRDP was 43.66 million KRW, approximately 6.79 million KRW higher than the national average of 36.87 million KRW. It was also found that the share of business services surpassed wholesale and retail trade for the first time.

On the 15th, Seoul City announced this through the GRDP report, which comprehensively evaluates the production scale by autonomous districts based on economic activities throughout 2018. Seoul's GRDP is the value of all goods and services produced within Seoul, assessed at market prices.

Seoul's economic growth rate in 2018 was 3.6%, 0.7 percentage points higher than the national economic growth rate of 2.9%. This was the highest growth rate in eight years since recording 3.5% growth in 2010, ranking fourth among the 17 metropolitan cities and provinces, following Chungbuk (6.3%), Gyeonggi (6.0%), and Gwangju (5.0%).

By economic activity, the GRDP share of the service sector increased by 0.2 percentage points to 91.9% compared to the previous year, while manufacturing decreased to 4.2%, continuing its decline. By sector size, business services accounted for 16.0%, wholesale and retail trade 15.9%, and information and communications 12.7%. For the first time since the GRDP statistics were compiled, the share of business services surpassed that of wholesale and retail trade.

The per capita GRDP of Seoul citizens was 43.66 million KRW, an increase of 2.29 million KRW from the previous year. Evaluated at the standard exchange rate (1 USD = 1,100.58 KRW), the per capita GRDP was 39,674 USD, up 3,075 USD from the previous year. Compared to the 2018 per capita GDP of 33,429 USD announced by the Bank of Korea, this is 6,245 USD higher.

The gap among autonomous districts reached up to 21 times. By district, Gangnam-gu had the largest GRDP at 69.186 trillion KRW, followed by Jung-gu with 54.274 trillion KRW and Seocho-gu with 35.277 trillion KRW. Gangnam-gu's GRDP was 21.6 times larger than that of Gangbuk-gu, which had the smallest scale at 3.207 trillion KRW.

Growth rates were highest in Seongdong-gu (7.0%), Songpa-gu (5.8%), and Gangdong-gu (5.6%). The district with the lowest growth rate was Dobong-gu (-0.1%), which experienced negative growth. Seongdong-gu showed high growth in real estate (26.3%) and information and communications (21.7%), Songpa-gu led growth in information and communications (17.1%), and Gangdong-gu's growth was driven by construction (49.3%).

By region, the southeastern area accounted for one-third of the total GRDP. The southeastern region's GRDP was 142 trillion KRW, representing 33.5% of Seoul's total, followed by the southwestern region with 102 trillion KRW and the central region with 98 trillion KRW. Looking at growth trends by region, the northwestern region had growth rates above 5% until 2013, the southwestern region recorded a high growth rate of 7.7% in 2017, and the southeastern region showed the highest growth rate of 4.4% in 2018.

Lee Won-mok, Director of Smart City Policy, explained, "GRDP statistics analyze production structures such as output, costs, and added value by industry, providing objective evidence to understand trends in changes. They are especially utilized in economic policy formulation and academic research," adding, "It is expected that their usefulness will increase in various fields such as urban competitiveness research and comparisons with overseas cities."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.