Annual trade volume to top $1 tril. next week

By Jung Sung-ki

Korea’s exports for the first 11 months set a record high of about $500 billion, the eighth largest volume of exports in the world, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy Thursday.

The ministry said the country’s total trade volume of imports and exports in the same period reached $987.6 billion, inching toward its goal of becoming the world’s ninth nation to reach $1 trillion in annual trade volume.

A ministry official said the nation’s two-way trade will likely surpass the $1 trillion mark as early as next week.

“Exports increased at a double-digit rate in November as shipments of key export items grew at a faster-than-expected,” the official said.

The exports in the January-November period hit $508.7 billion, rising 20.5 percent from the same period last year to breach the $500 billion mark for the first time in the nation’s history, he said.

The country's trade surplus came to $3.9 billion in November, up from $3.61 billion in the same month last year. The November figure, however, marks a drop from a $4.3 billion surplus posted a month earlier.

In November, exports gained 13.8 percent on-year to $47 billion while imports grew 11.3 percent to $43.1 billion.

November's export growth was largely led by increases in shipments of petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel, which jumped 46.2 percent from the same period last year. Exports of automobiles and steel products also surged 30.4 percent and 21.7 percent on-year, respectively.

By nation, exports to developing countries continued to surge with shipments to China also growing 9.2 percent from a year earlier. Exports to Middle Eastern countries rose 23.3 percent with those to the 10 member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also surging 16.5 percent on-year, according to the ministry.

The growth of imports in November significantly slowed from a 16.4 percent gain in the previous month as imports of oil and other raw materials shrank due to "unusually high temperatures," ministry officials said.

Imports of raw materials grew only 2.2 percent in the first 20 days of November from the same period a month earlier, compared with a 39.8 percent on-month increase during the same period last year.