South Korea’s exports, a closely watched bellwether for world trade, fell more than expected last month, dealing a blow to nascent optimism that a prolonged slump in global demand might be bottoming out.
Exports dropped 14.3 percent from a year earlier for a sixth straight double-digit decline, South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy data showed yesterday.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a 9.7 percent fall.
Preliminary figures had also offered hope of some respite in the export slide.
Imports decreased 13 percent, while the trade surplus was US$3.4 billion, narrowing from US$5.3 billion in October.
The government was more upbeat on the outlook for next year, saying that shipments hit bottom in October and would rebound from the first quarter of next year.
“Korea is not the only casualty of the US-China trade dispute, a slowdown in the global economy and no-deal Brexit,” the ministry said, adding that most of the world’s 10 biggest exporting countries had seen shipments decline as of September.
“We’re particularly harder hit because of heavy reliance on China by region and semiconductor by sector,” it said.
The trade data showed that chip exports, the largest category in South Korea’s overseas shipments, dropped 30.8 percent, compared with falls of more than 30 percent in the past few months.
The export numbers add to signs that the Asian country is on course for its weakest economic growth in a decade.
The Bank of Korea on Friday slashed its growth projections for this year and the next by 0.2 percentage points to 2 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.
That would be the slowest pace since 2009 when the country suffered in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
South Korea’s export-dependent economy has been one of the hardest hit by the US-China trade dispute and the disruptions it has caused in the global supply chain, with almost 40 percent of the nation’s shipments headed to the two countries.
Shipments to China dropped 12.2 percent last month from a year earlier, reflecting slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy and South Korea’s biggest export destination.
Exports to Japan fell 10.9 percent, while imports declined by 18.5 percent, as the two neighboring countries are engaged in their own trade dispute.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last