SEOUL South Korea's factory output in April fell 1.2% from March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, official data showed on Wednesday, coming in slightly softer than a 1.6% loss tipped in a Reuters survey.

In March, output rose by 5.3% from February, which was the fastest gain since June 2020, according to Statistics Korea.

Output in April was down 8.9% from the same month a year earlier, compared with a decline of 7.6% in March and a year-on-year drop of 7.9% expected by economists. It was the biggest annual loss in three months.

Retail sales in April dropped 2.3% from a month earlier, after a 0.1% gain in the previous month, marking the first monthly fall since January and the biggest in five months.

(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)