South Korea's trade deficit with Japan has exceeded $30 billion this year for the first time ever as a weakening local currency raised overall import prices, Yonhap News reported quoting a government report Sunday.
According to the report by the Korea Customs Service, the nation's trade deficit with Japan amounted to cumulative $30.85 billion during the January-November period, up 12.6 percent from the same period a year earlier.
The figure already surpasses the record deficit of $29.9 billion that South Korea suffered with Japan for all of last year.
The snowballing deficit stemmed mostly from the sharp decline in the won's value against the yen, which drove up import prices of Japanese-made parts used in semiconductors and other key export items for South Korea. The won has lost more than 40 percent against the yen so far this year.
Experts forecast that falling crude prices, coupled with a global economic slowdown, could lead to a reduction in the trade deficit in the months to come. In November, South Korea's trade deficit with Japan came to $1.84 billion, down 28.9 percent from the same month last year, the report showed.
The trade deficit with Middle Eastern countries also spiked, exceeding the $70 billion mark for the first time, according to the report.
South Korea posted a cumulative $71.76 billion trade deficit with the oil-rich countries in the months leading up to November, up 70.3 percent from a year earlier. The rise was attributed to soaring crude prices which peaked in mid-July before falling by more than half in the latter part of the year.
Meanwhile, the report estimated South Korea's total trade deficit at $13.66 billion by the end of November.