Retail sale in Jeju island dived 14.8 percent in the January-March quarter compared to the same quarter of last year, according to Statistics Korea.
It came as the number of foreign tourists visiting the resort island tumbled in the quarter, leading to a 47 percent drop in revenue of duty-free shops in the island.
Retail sale in the capital Seoul slumped 7.9 percent, while the reading in Daegu, about 300 km southeast of Seoul, slipped 9.9 percent. Daegu became the epicenter of the country's COVID-19 outbreak as the biggest cluster infection occurred in the metropolitan with a 2.5 million population.
Production of the services industry in Jeju island contracted 10.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier as output in the lodging and eatery sector plunged 23.8 percent amid a sharp slide in the number of foreign travelers to the resort island.
The services industry's output in Daegu dipped 4.4 percent in the quarter, but production in Seoul grew 2.3 percent, becoming the country's single city to see a growth in services output.
Output of the finance and insurance industry in Seoul advanced 15.4 percent during the quarter.
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