Key Industries to See Slower Export Growth
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
A red light is on for the country’s exports as the information-technology (IT), auto and other key industries are expected to experience a slowdown this year due to worsening external conditions such as the high crude oil price, a government report showed Sunday.
Overseas shipments of digital electronic products are forecast to rise 7.4 percent this year, a relatively low increase compared with the 8.9-percent growth in 2007 from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
Exports of mobile handsets, which rose 11 percent to $18.6 billion in 2007, are also expected to expand at an annual rate of about 8 percent this year, the ministry said in a report on the outlook of 2008 exports.
Overseas sales of computer memory chips are likely to remain sluggish in the first half of the year due to excessive supply, while those of other IT-related products such as laser printers are also expected to post a more or less 3-percent increase.
Facing a yet grimmer outlook is the automobile industry. Exports of cars, which rose 13.3 percent last year, would post a year-on-year increase rate of 5.7 percent this year. Exports of auto parts, which surged 29.5 percent last year, would grow 11.3 percent.
Shipbuilding is no exception. The growth rate of ship exports this year is forecast to fall to 10.2 percent from last year’s 25.1 percent. Machinery, steel and petrochemical industries are also expected to see their export growth rate drop sharply this year.
``It is hard to paint a rosy picture for exports because of some unfavorable factors such as a slowdown of advanced economies and the appreciation of the South Korean won," a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
According to a ministry’s year-end report, the country’s total exports in 2007 gained 14.2 percent from a year earlier to record $371.8 billion (348.9 trillion won) mainly on the back of brisk shipments of mobile phones, motor vehicles and ships.
But the country saw a trade deficit in December for the first time in 57 months due largely to soaring oil prices. Exports rose 15.5 percent year-on-year to $33.2 billion last month, while imports shot up 24 percent to $34.1 billion.
Government officials attributed the trade shortfall to a 40-percent jump in imports of crude oil, gas and other raw materials as well as an 80-percent drop in semiconductor prices.
``We expect that exports will continue to grow by a double-digit rate this year,’’ the ministry official said. But he warned of a dip in export growth this year, citing economic uncertainties in the United States, high oil prices and unstable foreign exchange rates.