S.Korea beats Japan in GNI per capita for 1st time in 2023

South Korea outstripped Japan in terms of per capita gross national income (GNI) for the first time in 2023, central bank data showed, with the Japanese yen’s weakness against the Korean won boosting the dollar value of South Korean income.

The change in the base year was also attributed to the increase, under which the country began to include new technology products such as high-performance semiconductor chips into its gross domestic product (GDP) calculations.

The GNI per capita for Asia’s No. 4 economy grew 2.7% to $36,194 in 2023 versus $35,229 the year prior, preliminary data released by the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed on Wednesday.

The 2023 figure surpassed Japan’s $35,793 recorded in 2023, down from the prior year’s $36,337, according to the BOK. The neighboring country’s GNI per capita had been higher than South Korea’s through 2022.

GNI per capita refers to the sum of a country’s GDP and net income from abroad divided by its population.

South Korea changed the base year for GDP calculations from 2015 to 2020. That led to a 7.3% increase in the country’s GNI per capita in 2023, compared with the previously released figure.

The country changes the GDP base year every five years like many other OECD countries to add new industries and products, such as high-bandwidth memory used for artificial intelligence applications, to the relevant data compilation.

The Japanese yen softened to 9.17 per the Korean won at the end of 2023 from 9.72 in early January of the year.

In terms of GNI per capita, South Korea came in sixth among the countries with a population of over 50 million behind the US, Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

South Korea’s nominal GDP expanded 7.4% to $1.84 trillion in 2023, compared with the advance estimate of $1.71 trillion released in March.

South Korea's nominal GDP is the world's 12th largest.

Some economists played down the GNI growth as just a numerical increase attributable to a base year change, rather than indicating meaningful economic growth.

Write to Jin-Gyu Kang at joseph@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.