Eight major overseas investment banks raised their average forecast for South Korea’s real GDP growth this year to 3.7% at the end of October, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. The upgrades reflected strong semiconductor exports and preliminary third-quarter growth of 1.0% quarter-on-quarter, well above the 0.3% market forecast, extending a seven-month run of increases since April. Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Nomura raised their estimates, while JPMorgan trimmed its forecast slightly. The average forecast for South Korea’s current-account surplus increased to 19.4% of nominal GDP, narrowing the gap with Taiwan. Next year’s average growth forecast rose to 2.9%, while the current-account surplus forecast increased to 19.5% of nominal GDP.