South Korea's factory output falls at fastest pace on auto chip shortage

South Korea's factory output in October shrank at its sharpest pace in nearly 1-1/2 years, government data showed on Tuesday, as global chip shortages continued to weigh on car production. 

Industrial output last month unexpectedly fell by a seasonally adjusted 3.0% month-on-month, Statistics Korea data showed, following a 1.1% decline in September and logging the biggest decline since May 2020. 

That also missed the 0.4% growth tipped in a Reuters poll of analysts, by a large margin. 

"Continued global supply chain disruption is one main factor behind the sluggish data," Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said, referring to the auto chip