South Korea posted a current account surplus for the 81st month in a row in January... but the size of that surplus shrank to its smallest in nine months.<br />Kim Hyesung reports. <br />Korea posted a current account surplus of 2-point-eight billion U.S. dollars in January.<br />That's about two billion dollars lower than December and also the smallest monthly surplus since April last year when it hit a six-year low of one-point-seven billion dollars. <br />The Bank of Korea attributed the fall to a smaller goods account surplus...which narrowed to an 11-month-low of five-point-six billion dollars,... with exports falling over five percent on-year to 49 billion dollars, posting two consecutive months of contraction.<br />Semiconductor exports, which accounted for a fifth of Korea's total exports in 2018... dropped over 22 percent on-year in January on decreasing global demand. <br />Petrochemical goods exports also dropped near five percent from the same period last year.<br />By region, exports to China dropped near 20 percent, and exports to the Middle East dropped by 27 percent on slowing demand. <br />Imports decreased slightly by 2 percent.<br />The services account deficit, however, narrowed to 3-point-six billion dollars from four-point-four billion dollars a year earlier. <br />The central bank said both the transport account deficit and travel account deficit had decreased.<br />In the travel account, the number of Chinese and Japanese visitors to Korea soared into double digits...helping bring the travel account deficit below the two billion dollar mark. <br />Kim Hyesung, Arirang News. <br />
