Per capita gross national income last year reached KRW 42.2 million, up 4.3% from KRW 40.4 million in 2021. Shown are containers on March 1 at the wharfs of the terminals Gamman and Sinseondae at the Port of Busan. (Yonhap News)

By Lee Jihae

Per capita gross national income (GNI) last year was USD 32,661. 

The Bank of Korea on March 7 announced the figure in a preliminary report on per capita GNI in last year's fourth quarter and all of 2022.  

Last year's per capita GNI declined 7.7% from USD 35,373 in 2021.

The report said, "Last year's KRW-USD exchange rate rose an annual average of 12.9%, which led to an 8.1% decline in nominal GDP (gross domestic product), so the nominal per capita GNI also decreased."

In domestic currency, per capita GNI last year marked KRW 42.2 million, a 4.3% increase from KRW 40.48 million in 2021. 

GNI is the total amount of earnings both at home and abroad by a nation's people and businesses divided by the country's population. Korea's figure broke USD 30,000 for the first time in 2017 with USD 31,734 and rose the following year to USD 33,564. The amount started to decline in 2019 with USD 32,204 and 2020 with USD 32,038 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but rose again in 2021 to USD 35,373.

Real GDP last year grew 2.6%.

Nominal GDP, however, grew 3.8% from 2021 to USD 2,150.6 trillion.