Weak consumer sentiment has pulled up Korea’s savings rate to the highest in more than 16 years, official data showed Tuesday.

According to the Statistics Korea and the Bank of Korea, the nation’s savings rate came to 36.5 percent in the first quarter, compared with 35 percent and 34.7 percent, in the corresponding period in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

On a quarterly basis, this is the highest since the rate peaked at 37.2 percent in the third quarter of 1998.

The savings rate is calculated by subtracting the consumption and expenditure of all the three sectors -- government, corporate and households -- from their disposable income.

Economists say that the household sector has led the combined high savings rate as it showed weak expenditure in the wake of mounting debt and low growth in real income.

Statistics Korea data shows a similar trend of rising saving rate during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and 2003 credit card fiasco. On a yearly basis, the savings rate climbed from 36.4 percent in 1997 to 38 percent in 1998, and from 33 percent in 2003 to 35.5 percent in 2004.

The recent high rate has been attributed to sluggish private consumption following the Sewol ferry disaster in April 2014, which is yet to pick up.

Main factors for the weak consumption in the household sector, cited by economists, included the prolonged economic slowdown, snowballing debt involving redemption burden of housing loans and earlier-than-expected retirement.

In contrast, the government sector showed a drop in the savings rate and the corporate sector remained at a similar level during the first quarter of 2015. In effect, the household sector is responsible for this surge in the nation’s savings rate.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)