South Korea's consumer price growth slowed to 3.4 percent last month, falling below the upper ceiling of the Bank of Korea (BOK)'s inflation target band of 2-4 percent for the first time in three months, a government report showed Wednesday.

Consumer prices advanced 3.4 percent in January from a year earlier, down from a 4.2 percent on-year rise tallied in the previous month, according to Statistics Korea. From a month before, consumer prices grew 0.5 percent, up from a 0.4 percent on-month gain in December.

Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile agricultural and oil product prices, gained 3.2 percent on-year in January, down from a 3.6 percent on-year rise recorded in the previous month, while the newly adopted OECD-method core CPI excluding food and energy prices climbed 2.5 percent last month, down from a 2.7 percent gain a month before.

Despite a gain in farm goods prices, continuous fall in vegetable prices helped the nation's inflationary pressure ease last month.

The fresh food price index, a gauge of fruits and vegetables, fell 2.5 percent in January from the previous year, with fresh vegetable prices diving 10.7 percent over the same period. The fresh vegetable prices kept its downward trend since September last year when it recorded a 4.24 percent on-year fall.

Prices for agricultural, fishery and livestock products gained 3.6 percent on-year in January, with agricultural and livestock product prices jumping 3.8 percent and 4.4 percent respectively. The farm goods gain was mainly attributed to strong demand for food in the Lunar New Year holiday and supply shortage during the winter season.

High energy costs drove up prices of manufactured products, which climbed 4.3 percent on-year in January. Prices of petroleum products jumped 7 percent over the cited period as mounting confrontation between Tehran and Washington over the former's nuclear ambition boosted the global oil prices.

Service sector prices grew 2.7 percent in January from a year earlier. Prices for housing rental and private services rose 5 percent and 3.4 percent respectively, but public service prices fell 0.7 percent.