South Korea's finance ministry cut on Thursday its 2012 economic growth outlook for the country to 3. 3 percent from an earlier estimate of 3.7 percent due to the expected worsening of external conditions caused by Europe's fiscal crisis.

"Our growth outlook downgrade is in line with the global trend. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its global economic growth outlook to 3.5 percent from the previous 4.0 percent recently, and the Fed cut its outlook for the U.S. economy by 0.5 percentage point," Choi Sang-mok, direct general of the economic policy bureau at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, said at a briefing.

Choi warned that uncertainties over the European fiscal crisis remained large, saying that the crisis in the euro zone was previously forecast to ease from the second quarter before getting back on its recovery track in the second half, but the recovery process was unexpectedly delayed.