General

According to customs data, South Korea's exports in November decreased by 14% year-on-year to US $51.91 billion, while its imports increased by 2.7% year-on-year to US $58.93 billion. As a result, the trade balance showed a deficit of 7.01 billion US dollars. According to customs data, Yonhap reported on December 1 that after October (- 5.7%), South Korea's exports showed a negative growth for two consecutive months, but imports remained on the rise. As a result, South Korea's trade balance has been in deficit for eight consecutive months, the longest time since the Asian financial crisis broke out in 1997. According to the analysis of the Ministry of Industry of South Korea, the protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the deflation policies adopted by many countries led to the slowdown of global economic growth, and the collective refusal of South Korea's freight trade unions, which had a negative impact on exports in November.

According to customs data, in terms of export items, automobiles (31%), petroleum products (26%), and secondary batteries (0.5%) all increased year on year, with automobile exports hitting a single month record. On the contrary, semiconductor (- 29.8%) and petrochemical (- 26.5%) decreased significantly. According to customs data, exports to the United States (8%), the Middle East (4.5%) and the European Union (0.1%) increased, but exports to ASEAN (- 13.9%) decreased. In terms of import, the import volume of the three major energy sources (crude oil, gas and coal) increased by 27.1% year-on-year to 15.51 billion US dollars.

According to customs data, the cumulative export volume of South Korea from January to November this year increased by 7.8% year on year to US $629.1 billion. The annual cumulative export volume exceeded 600 billion US dollars in November, which is the first time. The trade deficit in the same period was 42.6 billion US dollars, which was far higher than the highest annual deficit recorded in 1996 (20.624 billion US dollars).