SEOUL, May 25 (Reuters) - South Korea's central bank held interest rates steady for a third meeting on Thursday, as expected, after a 1-1/2-year-long tightening cycle and as both inflation and economic growth eased.
The Bank of Korea announced its seven-member monetary policy board voted to keep its policy rate unchanged at 3.50%, without elaborating. Governor Rhee Chang-yong is due to hold a news conference soon.
The decision matched the prediction from all 40 economists surveyed by Reuters. Most of the respondents forecast the next rate change would be a cut, probably during the final quarter of this year.
The Bank of Korea started raising interest rates in August 2021 to tame inflation, well before the world's other major central banks, and had raised them by a total of 300 basis points through January this year. (Reporting by Choonsik Yoo and Jihoon Lee; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)