Mid-size refrigerators, washing machines and air-conditioners increase 45%, 21% and 3.2%, respectively, from a year ago In the first quarter of this year, productionof mid-size refrigerators and washing machines extended the previous year's robust trends, and air-conditioner production stretched an upward trend for three months in a row from the beginning of the year. According to the recent industrial output statistics from the National Statistical Office, the quarterly production of mid-size refrigerators from January through March posted 610,000 units, up 45.3% from the same period of 2003. Washing machine production stood at 1.34 million units in the first-quarter with a year-on-year jump of 20.9%. Those two items had extended robust growth in production since last year, but air-conditioners newly emerged this year as a fast-increasing item in the first-quarter production, marking 2.25 million units with a year-on-year rise of 3.2%. In the case of refrigerators, mid-size models posted growth in production, but small and mid-size ones sharply decreased together with kimchi refrigerators which also were in a slump. Such a phenomenonindicated the overall slowdown of domestic electrichome appliance sector caused by the shrunken buying interest of consumers. Particularly, a drop in the production of large-size refrigerators is foreseen to continue for some time. With the supply rate already increased to a large extent, kimchi refrigerators decreased both in production and domestic sales. Kimchi refrigeratorsregistered exports last year, but the actual number of the exported kimchi refrigerators was immaterial. Helped by brisk sales of drum-type models, washing machines increased both production and exports in the January-March quarter. In the case of TVs, digital models continued steady growth both in production and domestic sales, but conventional color TVs slumped. Meanwhile, computers, which have extended a downward trend since 2001, failed to get out of sluggishness as ever. sskim@snmnews.com