CPI in South Korea

South Korea's Consumer Price Index measures the change in the cost of a representative basket of goods and services bought by urban households. Compiled by Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) on a 2020=100 base, it is the inflation gauge watched by the Bank of Korea, whose target is 2%.

A chain-linked Laspeyres index over a basket of around 450 items, with weights revised every five years. The release reports the index and its monthly and year-on-year changes, not seasonally adjusted.

It is the key inflation reading for the won and the Korean rate curve, and it comes out very early (on the 2nd of the following month), ahead of almost any other advanced economy.

As it is not seasonally adjusted, the monthly change is noisy. The five-yearly reweighting introduces level shifts in the series.