By Jihoon Lee <\/p>\n
SEOUL, July 1 (Reuters) – South Korea’s exports expanded at the strongest pace in nearly half a century last month, smashing forecasts, on a surge in chip \u200csales propelled by the global boom in AI investment. <\/p>\n
Exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy rose \u200c70.9% in June from a year earlier to $102.25 billion, quickening from the 53.4% jump in May and marking the biggest \u200byear-on-year increase since October 1978, preliminary trade data showed on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The annual percentage growth rate topped the median 61.0% increase forecast in a Reuters poll, beating all 13 projections provided by economists. <\/p>\n
Semiconductor exports surged 199.5% to $44.8 billion, making South Korea the fourth country in the world to reach a monthly export \u200cvalue of $100 billion, after Germany, China \u2060and the United States, according to the trade ministry. <\/p>\n
“Exports will remain robust in the second half, led by semiconductors. There is no sign of the \u2060chip boom waning anywhere, so it won’t easily cool down next year either,” said Park Sang-hyun, an analyst at iM Securities. <\/p>\n
“Still, growth rates are seen nearing a peak,” Park added. <\/p>\n
Home to the world’s biggest chipmakers \u200bSamsung Electronics \u200band SK Hynix, South Korea’s exports have been rising \u200bsince June 2025 and posting double-digit \u200cgrowth rates from December as global demand for AI investment drives up memory chip prices. <\/p>\n
A separate survey showed on Wednesday that South Korea’s factory activity expanded in June for the seventh consecutive month but at a slower pace than the previous month on falling export demand. <\/p>\n
In June, computer sales also rose 308.8% on increasing AI investment by major technology firms, while steel products snapped 13 months \u200cof decline to rise 9.6% on data center construction. \u200bPetroleum products rose 49.8% on high oil prices. <\/p>\n
By destination, shipments \u200bto China and the U.S. were up \u200b92.1% and 78.6%, respectively, while those to the European Union rose 31.8%. \u200cExports to the Middle East fell 8.4%. <\/p>\n
Imports \u200brose 30.1% to $66.10 billion, after \u200brising 20.7% the previous month. That was faster than the 26.3% increase expected by economists and the fastest since May 2022. <\/p>\n
The country posted a monthly trade balance of $36.15 billion, the \u200bbiggest on record, bringing its \u200ctrade surplus for the first half of the year to $138.3 billion, compared with an \u200bannual surplus of $77.4 billion for the whole year of 2025. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing \u200bby Tom Hogue, Jacqueline Wong and Stephen Coates) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jihoon Lee SEOUL, July 1 (Reuters) – South Korea’s exports expanded at the strongest pace in nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[38540,31,33],"class_list":["post-70667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-half-a-century","tag-korea","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70667","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=70667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}