Korea’s gross national income rose 2.9 percent in the second quarter of this year compared with the previous quarter, the highest increase in four years, the Bank of Korea said Thursday.

The central bank attributed the rise in real GNI per capita to brisk trade and increased income from Koreans working abroad.

The country’s GNI growth has been falling since the second quarter of last year when the rate was 1.5 percent, then slid to 0.7 percent in the third quarter of 2012 and 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

The continuous decline was mainly due to the global economic slowdown, which has adversely affected Korean productivity both at home and abroad, BOK officials said.

However, the increase rate of Korea’s real GNI per capita rebounded to 0.8 percent in the first quarter of this year as exports improved on the back of the global economic recovery.

Korea’s inflation-adjusted or real gross domestic product grew 1.1 percent in the second quarter of this year compared with the first quarter, the central bank added.

The country’s GDP growth rate remained unchanged from its preliminary estimate announced last July.

It also attributed exports to improved GDP growth, which has been in the doldrums, growing at below 1 percent over the past two years.

A BOK official said various economic indicators such as inflation, current account and GDP growth were solid.

Despite the recovery from low growth, the central bank said in July that the general public may not feel much benefit from this positive outcome as the growth had mostly been led by a few conglomerates in manufacturing sectors such as IT and automobiles.

The government’s fiscal spending was also the reason behind Korea’s 1.1 percent growth.

It said that government spending contributed 0.3 percentage point to the first half growth of 1.9 percent, expecting additional fiscal stimulus to further add 0.6 percentage point to growth in the second half.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)