Foreigners spent far less with their credit cards during their stay in South Korea in the third quarter of this year in the aftermath of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak that led to a drop in the number of foreign visitors, data showed Wednesday.
  

Credit card purchases by non-South Korean nationals plunged 38.7 percent to US$2 billion in the July-September period from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Credit Finance Association.
  

The third-quarter figure marked the lowest since 2002 when CREFIA started to compile such data.
  

CREFIA attributed the sharp decline to a decreased number of foreign tourists, citing that 2.91 million visited South Korea during the three-month period, down 28.3 percent on-year from 4.05 million.
  

"The number visitors especially from Hong Kong and Taiwan dropped steeply as the two countries, who had been hit hard by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, are very sensitive to an infectious disease," said CREFIA.
  

"The foreign card spending is expected to get back to normal from the fourth quarter on rising foreign tourists to South Korea."
  

Meanwhile, South Korean passport holders spend $3.3 billion swiping plastics, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier.
  

The local retail and tourism sector faltered when the MERS outbreak hit the country in late May, claiming 38 lives here, the largest outside Saudi Arabia. (Yonhap)