South Korea's economy posted the longest current account surplus for 45 months in a row due to faster fall in imports than exports, keeping a so-called recession-type surplus trend, central bank data showed on Tuesday.
Current account surplus reached 9.40 billion U.S. dollars in November, up from a surplus of 9.12 billion dollars in October, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the longest surplus for 45 straight months since March 2012.
During the January-November period, the surplus amounted to 97. 99 billion dollars, boosting expectations to top 100 billion dollars for the whole year of 2015. The longest surplus trend came from faster reduction in imports than exports.
The import decline was attributable to lower oil prices and slowing facility investment, which may lead to the weakening of corporate competitiveness. Trade surplus for goods amounted to 9.98 billion dollars in November, down from 10.61 billion dollars in the prior month.
Exports declined 11.8 percent from a year earlier to 43.43 billion dollars in November, and imports plunged 15.6 percent to 33.45 billion dollars. For the first 11 months of this year, the trade surplus came to 109.12 billion dollars, exceeding 100 billion dollars for the first time in the country's history.
The previous yearly high was 88.88 billion dollars tallied in 2014. Exports of ships and telecommunication devices, including smartphones, jumped 135.5 percent and 17.4 percent each in November from a year earlier, but those for oil products tumbled 36.5 percent amid lower crude prices.
Display panel exports retreated 25.4 percent in November on a yearly basis, and steel shipments declined 23.8 percent. Imports of raw materials and capital goods dipped 30.1 percent and 3.6 percent respectively, but consumer goods imports rose 3.0 percent.
Deficit in the service account balance, which measures the flow of travel, transport costs and royalties, narrowed down to 1.28 billion dollars in November from 1.7 billion dollars in October. Intellectual property rights deficit shed from 680 million dollars in October to 10 million dollars in November.
Travel account balance posted a deficit of 720 million dollars in November, down from a 850 million-dollar deficit in the previous month. Transport account balance logged a surplus of 200 million dollars, and the construction account balance posted a surplus of 770 million dollars.
Surplus in the primary income account, which gauges investment and interest incomes, widened from 590 million dollars in October to 890 million dollars in November due to an increase in dividend income.
Financial account, which gauges cross-border capital flow without transactions in goods and services, registered an outflow of 8.7 billion dollars in November, down from an outflow of 11.09 billion dollars in October.
Flight of direct investment narrowed from 3.5 billion dollars in October to 0.9 billion dollars in November on the back of an increase in foreign direct investment into the economy. Flight of portfolio investment, which includes stock and bond transactions, reduced from 7.1 billion dollars to 5.13 billion dollars in the cited period due to a fall in local investors' purchase of foreign securities.
Other investment income, including trade credit and foreign debts, registered an outflow of 1.66 billion dollars in November from an inflow of 0.93 billion dollars in October owing to financial institutions repaying foreign debts.
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