SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday there was a need to “manage” policy loan rates should expectations about lower borrowing costs lead to further price increases in the already hot housing market.
“It won’t matter if it (home buying) is real demand, but if speculative demand stemming from asset management purposes boost home prices we will manage policy interest rates. We need to make clear messages on that to calm the overheated sentiment,” Yoon said during a televised news conference.
An official at the Presidential Office later clarified that Yoon was referring to policy loan interest rates. The official noted that interest rates on policy-supported mortgages and other loans increased from Aug. 16 as they were significantly lower than market rates.
“The slight increase in policy loan interest rates were designed to pace the loan growth,” the official said.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) said at its Aug. 22 meeting that it was time to prepare to cut interest rates after leaving the benchmark rate steady at a 15-year high of 3.50% for the 13th straight meeting, as expected.
(Reporting by Cynthia KimEditing by Ed Davies and Miral Fahmy)
