BEIJING, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Forecasters in Japan and South Korea have revised their economic forecasts downward, reflecting the economic slowdown in the West, analysts said.
The central bank in South Korea Friday revised its 2012 growth forecast for South Korea to 3.7 percent from an earlier projection of 4.6 percent, The New York Times reported.
In Japan, revised gross domestic product data indicated the economy grew less than expected during the past quarter. The annual growth was changed from 6 percent to 5.6 percent and the quarterly growth rate was lowered to 1.4 percent from the previous estimate of 1.5 percent.
The worsening economic environment already prompted several rate cuts in the Asia-Pacific region as policy-makers work to buttress their economies, analysts told the Times.
In China, the National Bureau of Statistics said the country's consumer price index was 4.2 percent in November, down from 5.5 percent in October, China's official news agency Xinhua reported.
"November's reading indicates that inflation is weakening faster than I had anticipated," said Zhang Monan, a deputy researcher with the Economic Projection Department of the State Information Center.
Zhang said she had expected the November inflation rate to be just below 5 percent. She said the lower-than-expected inflation rate resulted from China's macroeconomic control policies, particularly the monetary tightening policies instituted earlier this year.
"The monetary tightening in the first half of this year had an effect [on the CPI figure]," she said, adding that shrinkage in domestic and overseas demand and falling commodity prices also curbed price increases.
China's producer price index, a measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 2.7 percent in November, the bureau said.
