Exports up 55.6% during first 10 days of March

Containers are stacked at a port in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, March 3. Yonhap

Korea's exports jumped 55.6 percent from a year earlier in the first 10 days of March, driven by strong overseas demand for semiconductors, data showed Wednesday.

Outbound shipments reached $21.5 billion in the March 1-10 period, compared with $13.8 billion tallied a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.

It marked the country's largest exports recorded for the cited period.

Imports went up 21.7 percent year-on-year to $19.4 billion during the period, resulting in a trade surplus of $2.1 billion, the data showed.

By item, exports of semiconductors surged 175.9 percent year-on-year to a record high of $7.6 billion amid the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom.

The figure marked the highest amount ever recorded for the first 10 days of a month, far exceeding the previous record of $6.7 billion set last month.

Chip exports accounted for 35.3 percent of the country's total exports over the cited period, up 15.4 percentage points from the same period last year.

Exports of petroleum products jumped 44.1 percent to $1.4 billion.

But automobile exports went down 13.9 percent year-on-year to $1.4 billion, while shipments of vessels dipped 61.9 percent to $465 million.

Source: Korea Times News