S Korea's consumer prices rise 2.5% in May

SEOUL - South Korea's consumer prices rose 2.5 percent in May from a year earlier, staying below the midpoint of Bank of Korea (BOK)'s inflation target band of 2-4 percent, a report showed Friday.

Consumer prices advanced 2.5 percent in May from a year before, unchanged from a 2.5 percent on-year gain tallied in the previous month, according to Statistics Korea. From a month earlier, the prices were up 0.2 percent.

Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile agricultural and oil product prices, rose 1.6 percent on-year in May, down from a 1.8 percent on-year advance in the previous month, while the OECD- method core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, gained 1.5 percent last month, down from a 1.6 percent increase in April.