A senior official of the global rating agency Standard & Poor's on Wednesday said the South Korean economy could grow at an average rate of 2.9 percent per year until 2019.

Kim Eng Tan, senior director of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at S&P, made the assessment of Asia's fourth-largest economy, citing South Korea has globally competitive companies and its industrial sector is properly distributed.

He said South Korea's expected average annual growth rate between 2016 and 2019 is higher than those of advanced countries and it is also higher than the 2.6 percent growth recorded last year.

His assessment was included in a press release ahead of a seminar on credit risks in Seoul.

In the April-June period, South Korea's gross domestic product expanded 0.8 percent from the previous quarter, accelerating from a 0.5 percent on-quarter expansion three months earlier, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.

Kim Eng Tan said South Korea's per capita GDP could exceed $30,000 in 2019, compared with $27,000 in 2016.

He also said North Korea is a constant source of geopolitical volatility.

North Korea is under the toughest UN sanctions ever over its fourth nuclear test and its long-range rocket launch earlier this year. North Korea has also fired a series of missiles in recent months in a show of force against South Korea and the United States. (Yonhap)