SEOUL, May 23 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating inched up this week on his efforts to boost the lackluster economy, a weekly poll showed Thursday.

According to the Realmeter poll, support for Moon rose 0.4 percentage points over the week to 49.8 percent this week.

The negative assessment on Moon's management of state affairs inched down 0.3 percentage points to 45.7 percent.

It came as Moon announced his government's plan Wednesday to foster the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as new growth engines by expanding R&D investment and providing various incentives.

The Moon government picked the non-memory chip, future-generation vehicle and the biotech sectors as the three key growth drivers.

Moon's efforts to reinvigorate the export-driven economy offset worry about the economic slump, caused by export reduction for the past five months through April.

The state-run Korea Development Institute (KDI) on Wednesday lowered its 2019 growth forecast for the economy to 2.4 percent from 2.6 percent six months earlier. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also lowered its growth outlook by the same margin.

Support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party declined 3.8 percentage points to 38.5 percent this week, followed by the main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party that won 32.8 percent of support.

The minor progressive Justice Party gained 7.4 percent of support score, with the minor conservative Bareun Future Party and the center-left Party for Democracy and Peace garnering 4.6 percent and 2.3 percent each.

The results were based on a survey of 1,511 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It had plus or minus 2.5 percentage points in margin of error with a 95-percent confidence level. Enditem

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