By Kang Seung-woo
Korea has posted a surplus in the balance of payments (BOP) for the sixth quarter in a row since the fourth quarter of 2008, after the global financial crisis erupted in the previous quarter, the government said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said the nation has kept the BOP in the black since it reported a deficit of $7.5 billion in the third quarter of 2008, citing a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). A total of 10 countries including Korea achieved the BOP surplus during the one-and-half-year period.
The BOP is composed of the current account and capital account, meaning all of a country’s economic transactions with the rest of the world over a certain time period, typically a calendar quarter or year. A surplus is interpreted as a sign of economic health.
Exports-oriented Korea was hit hard by the financial turmoil, logging the negative $7.5 billion mark, but it bounced back in the fourth quarter of 2008, with $6 billion in surplus, boosted by export gains.
Since then, Asia’s fourth-largest economy has posted a positive BOP, recording $1.28 billion in surplus in the first quarter of 2010, the end of the survey period.
“Korea’s solid rebound is attributable to brisk exports in such areas as semiconductors, electronic parts and petrochemical products,” a ministry official said.
The ministry official added that at the present pace of exports should continue for the rest of the year.
Among members of the international economic organization, there are nine other countries which also remained in the black, but those including Japan consistently maintained a surplus during or before the financial fiasco, sparked by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Korea’s $1.28 billion marked in the first quarter of the year was the 11th largest BOP surplus in the world behind Australia with $1.48 billion and Chile with $1.3 billion, while Japan topped the list after chalking up $50.2 billion, followed by Germany with $39.7 billion and Switzerland with $20.6 billion.
The United States and Spain ended up with a deficit of $109 billion and $23.4 billion apiece.