South Korea's industrial output grew in September from a month earlier, but the overall growth remained sluggish with the production in manufacturing not improving much, government data showed Thursday.

According to the report by Statistics Korea, production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries expanded 0.1 percent last month from a month earlier. This marked a turnaround from a 3.9 percent shrinkage tallied in August. 

Production in the service sector also expanded 0.1 percent on-month, the report showed.

"We cannot say that the rebound is significant. The overall sluggish mood that started in August seems to have gone onto September," Jeon Baek-geun, head of the agency's short-term industry statistics division, told Yonhap News Agency. 

He attributed the lackluster output figures to anemic exports to China, especially memory chips, and the automotive industry, whose production was disrupted by partial walkouts last month. 

The report showed that the output in manufacturing remained unchanged compared with a month earlier, with a decline in the production of parts and vehicles being offset by an increase in machinery equipment.

Production of chips and parts shrank 4.4 percent on-month in September, while the output of automobiles declined 5.8 percent.

Machinery equipment production rose 6.4 percent.

The report showed that the average facility operating ratio in the manufacturing sector rebounded to 75.2 percent from the previous month's 74 percent, which was the lowest ratio since May 2009.

Business investment and consumption showed a mixed bag of results. 

Facility investment jumped 13.2 percent in September from a month earlier, with a marked increase in spending on industrial machinery and transportation equipment.

Retail sales, a main gauge of consumer spending, however, dropped 3.2 percent compared with the previous month's 2.9 percent gain.

The data comes as South Korea's economic recovery remains slow.

Central bank data earlier showed that South Korea's economy grew 0.9 percent in the third quarter from three months earlier.

From a year before, it expanded 3.2 percent in the July-September period, slowing from the 3.5 percent growth tallied in the previous quarter.

During a meeting with other economy-related ministers on Thursday, Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan provided a relatively bleak assessment of the latest economic conditions, saying that the recovery trend in industrial output and domestic demand still remains weak and exports are not strong enough.

He worried that external market conditions are not favorable, citing the slowdown in economic comeback in the eurozone and China and the depreciating Japanese currency. "Differentiated" currency policies among advanced countries are also factors that are intensifying volatility in the global financial market, he said. (Yonhap)