South Korea posted a current account surplus for the 81st month in a row in January... but the size of that surplus shrank to its smallest in nine months.
Kim Hyesung reports.
Korea posted a current account surplus of 2-point-eight billion U.S. dollars in January.
That's about two billion dollars lower than December and also the smallest monthly surplus since April last year when it hit a six-year low of one-point-seven billion dollars.
The Bank of Korea attributed the fall to a smaller goods account surplus...which narrowed to an 11-month-low of five-point-six billion dollars,... with exports falling over five percent on-year to 49 billion dollars, posting two consecutive months of contraction.
Semiconductor exports, which accounted for a fifth of Korea's total exports in 2018... dropped over 22 percent on-year in January on decreasing global demand.
Petrochemical goods exports also dropped near five percent from the same period last year.
By region, exports to China dropped near 20 percent, and exports to the Middle East dropped by 27 percent on slowing demand.
Imports decreased slightly by 2 percent.
The services account deficit, however, narrowed to 3-point-six billion dollars from four-point-four billion dollars a year earlier.
The central bank said both the transport account deficit and travel account deficit had decreased.
In the travel account, the number of Chinese and Japanese visitors to Korea soared into double digits...helping bring the travel account deficit below the two billion dollar mark.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.