South Korea export growth surges in May

Korea's export growth rate in May recorded the highest in 32 years and 9 months.

Recent Monthly Export Percentage Change

 

According to the “Import and Export Trends for May 2021” announced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the amount of exports last month was $50.73 billion (about 56.295 trillion won), up 45.6% from the same period last year.

It was the largest growth since August 1988. Exports in last May were also the highest in every May of past years.

 

Above all, it is the third consecutive month that the monthly exports recorded a record high since March.

The average daily export amount (2.416 billion USD) was also the highest in history as of May. In particular, the average daily export value last month exceeded $2.4 billion for the first time since 2018, and it is the third highest compared to all previous months.

 

In addition, exports increased year-on-year in all nine major regions of the world (China, USA, EU, ASEAN, Japan, South America, Middle East, India, CIS) in April and May.  What exports to the nine major regions have increased consecutively for two months is the first time in 10 years. The economic recovery effect is also reflected in export performance for each item. Last month, 14 of the 15 major items showed an increase in exports compared to the previous year.

 

Of these, 12 items had double-digit increases; semiconductors (23.5%), general machinery (25.9%), automobiles (93.7%), petrochemicals (94.9%), petroleum products (164.1%), Steel (62.9%), Ships (-14.9%), Auto parts (182.3%), Mobile device (41.4%), Computer (7.5%), Fiber (57.6%), Appliances (89.4%), Bio Health (1.5%), and Secondary Cell (32.1%).

 

The absolute export amount ($4.28 billion) was also the third highest on record as of May.

Exports, which had not increased in the past month, also surged 15.6% from the previous year. What both export unit price and volume rose by double digits is the first time in 14 months since September 2017 as well.

 

Ships alone saw a decrease in exports compared to the previous year, actually, is just to reflect orders two to three years ago. According to pundits, the actual export volume of ships field also increased sharply in this year.