South Korea's central bank cut the key interest rate for the first time in more than three years on Thursday, underscoring its urgency to cushion the bitter impact of the eurozone debt crisis on the local economy.

Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Kim Choong-soo and his six fellow policymakers lowered the benchmark 7-day repo rate by a quarter percentage point to 3 percent for July. It marked the first rate cut since February 2009.

The decision, which was not unanimous, came as a surprise to the market as only one out of 15 analysts predicted a rate cut for July in a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.

The BOK slashed the key rate by 3.25 percentage points to a record low of 2 percent between October 2008 and February 2009 to fight global financial turmoil. The bank raised it by five steps between July 2010 and June 2011 to curb inflationary pressure.