South Korea July exports grow 29.6% on strong semiconductor shipments

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–South Korea’s exports in July grew by 29.6% year on year to a record high of $55.4bn, thanks to strong shipment and prices of semiconductor chips, official data showed on Monday.

Shipments to China – South Korea’s biggest export market – rose by 15.7% year on year in July on strong demand for chips, petrochemicals and displays, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) said in a statement.

To the US, exports posted a stronger growth of 32.1% to $8.7bn in July.

Overall chip exports in July jumped by 39.6% year on year to $11.0bn, rising for the 13th straight month, MOTIE said.

“Due to new CPU [central processing unit] releases, major data center companies are expanding servers, pushing up the demand for high-capacity DRAMs [dynamic random-access memory]. Memory chip prices also went up as the demand from the mobile sector is robust,” the ministry said.

July automobile exports increased by 12.3% to $4.1bn.

Meanwhile, overall imports last month jumped by 38.2 percent to $53.7bn, resulting in a trade surplus of $1.8bn, it said.