S.Korea tells state firms to boost spending as economy slows

KOREA SELATAN / KORSEL - SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's government told state enterprises on Wednesday to spend 1 trillion won ($824.63 million) more than they had planned for the rest of the year to support cooling private sector activity.

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki told heads of the country's 137 state-owned organisations at a meeting to increase their investment by 1 trillion won this year to prop up the economy, taking total investment for the year to 55 trillion.

This means public enterprises now have to boost their spending by some 6% for the rest of the year as Asia's fourth-largest economy is widely expected to miss the government's recently downgraded growth target this year.

The government has a 2.4-2.5% growth target for this year but global investment banks see growth tumbling to as low as 1.4% from 2.7% last year, one of the worst in half a century.

($1 = 1,212.6600 won) (Reporting by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Sam Holmes)