SEOUL South Korea's factory production unexpectedly jumped in May, official data showed on Friday, while retail sales also rose last month.
The industrial output index rose 3.2% in May on a seasonally-adjusted monthly basis, the Statistics Korea data showed, compared with losses of 0.6% in April and 0.8% tipped in a Reuters survey.
The output fell 7.3% on an annual basis, which was also milder than drops of 9.0% in April and 8.5% expected by economists.
Retail sales rose 0.4% in May, after dropping 2.6% in April, which was the worst in five months.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
