Reuters<\/a><\/p>\nIn all of 2025, the country exported $709.3 billion worth of goods. This was the second consecutive annual record.<\/p>\n
South Korea, Asia\u2019s fourth-largest economy, could reach $1 trillion in annual exports as early as the beginning of December. If so, it would become the fourth country after the United States, China, and Germany to surpass this threshold.<\/p>\n
Our exports continue to demonstrate exceptionally strong growth, despite the uncertain trade environment caused by rising protectionism, the restructuring of global supply chains, and the situation in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u2013 South Korea Customs Service<\/p>\n
Chips accounted for 41% of South Korea\u2019s exports<\/p>\n
From January through August 2026, semiconductor exports increased by 169.6% compared with the same period last year, reaching $281 billion. As a result, chips accounted for 41% of the country\u2019s total exports.<\/p>\n
South Korea is home to the world\u2019s leading memory chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. They are benefiting from a sharp rise in product prices amid a boom in artificial intelligence investment and a chip shortage.<\/p>\n
At the same time, passenger car shipments, which rank second among the country\u2019s main export goods, fell by 4% year on year during the first eight months of the year.<\/p>\n
Exports to China, South Korea\u2019s largest trading partner, rose by 76% during this period. Shipments to the United States increased by 57%.<\/p>\n
Strong semiconductor sales are enabling South Korea to aim for a new all-time export high and bringing it closer to the symbolic $1 trillion mark for the year as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A single industry now accounts for nearly half of the country\u2019s overseas sales, turning the global AI race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2781,14854,31,154,276,2267,275,33,22807,73145],"class_list":["post-144133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-ai-chip-demand","tag-global-trade","tag-korea","tag-news","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-semiconductor-exports","tag-sk-hynix","tag-south-korea","tag-south-korea-exports","tag-south-korea-exports-ai-chip-demand-semiconductor-exports-global-trade-samsung-electronics-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}