South Korea’s national tax collection inched up during the first half from a year earlier, but its pace of growth slowed, government data showed Wednesday.

The government’s national tax collection came to 98.4 trillion won ($96.5 billion) during the January-June period, up 1.2 trillion won from the same period last year, according to the data from the Finance Ministry.

The amount represented 45.5 percent of the government’s first-half target. The ratio is 2.7 percentage points lower than the year before, the data showed.

The decline is attributed to slower collection of corporate, customs and value-added taxes, whose ratios dropped 4.2 percentage points, 5.5 percentage points and 0.9 percentage point from a year earlier. (Yonhap)