South Korea’s industrial output grew for the second straight month in July, raising expectations that the economic recovery might be gaining some momentum, a government report showed Friday.

According to the report by Statistics Korea, production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries expanded 1.1 percent last month from June. The growth rate, however, slowed down from a revised 2.6 percent gain a month earlier.

Production in the service sector inched down 0.4 percent on-month in July, the report showed.

“The slowing pace of output growth is due to weak production in the service and construction sectors. The overall growth in manufacturing fared quite well thanks to more working days compared with a month earlier,” said Jeon Baek-geun, head of the agency’s short-term industry statistics division. (Yonhap)