Nine leading investment banks abroad have upgraded their forecasts for Korea's GDP growth this year to an average of 3.4%. The photo shows Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul. (Yonhap News)

By Lee Hana and Yoon Sojung

World-leading investment banks have slightly raised their average combined forecast for Korea's GDP growth this year.

In a report released on Jan. 6 by the Korea Center for International Finance report titled "Major Investment Banks' Forecasts for Economic Indexes of Major Asian Economies," Korea as of late last month was projected to see average GDP growth of 3.4% by Barclays, Bank of America and BofA Securities, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC, Nomura and UBS.

The outlook was up a tenth of a percentage point from that from the previous month.

Seven of the nine banks maintained their forecasts last month while two raised them.

Credit Suisse raised its outlook for Korea to 3.6% from 2.9% and HSBC to 2.7% from 2.2%.

Barclays (3.2%), Citi (3%), Goldman Sachs (3.6%), JP Morgan (3.5%), Nomura (3.6%) and UBS (4.1%) all retained their previous predictions.

For 2022, the average of the nine banks' forecasts for Korea's GDP growth was 2.8%.

UBS had the highest outlook with 3.8%, followed by JP Morgan with 3.5% and Citi with 3.4%.

Barclays gave a forecast of 2.7%, followed by Goldman Sachs with 2.5%, and HSBC and Nomura with 2.0% each. Bank of America and BofA Securities and Credit Suisse did not release predictions for the Korean economy for next year.

hlee10@korea.kr