Taiwan’s trade deficit with South Korea continued to widen in the first nine months of this year, with imports rising more quickly than exports, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said in a report yesterday.
Taiwan had long had a trade deficit with South Korea, ranging between US$800 million to US$5.5 billion from 2016 to 2020, the DGBAS said, citing Customs Administration data.
The deficit widened further last year to US$10.5 billion, as imports from South Korea rose 50 percent annually to US$30.64 billion, outpacing the 30 percent annual increase in exports to US$20.14 billion, the DGBAS said.
The trend continued in the first nine months of this year, as exports to South Korea rose 18.6 percent year-on-year to US$17.24 billion, accounting for 4.7 percent of total exports, while imports from the country rose 20.5 percent annually to US$26.65 billion, Ministry of Finance data showed.
That resulted in a trade deficit of US$9.40 billion, up 24.3 percent from a year earlier.
Taiwan and South Korea trade mostly in semiconductors, which drive the two economies’ exports of electronic goods to the rest of the world, but South Korea’s dominance in DRAM seems to have given it an edge over Taiwan in terms of trade balance, the DGBAS said.
Taiwan’s exports of electronic components to South Korea, which accounted for 67.9 percent of total exports to the country, grew 25.7 percent from a year earlier in the first nine months.
More than 90 percent of the components were semiconductors, whose exports to South Korea rose 25.2 percent year-on-year during the same period, the agency said.
However, the nation’s imports of electronic components from South Korea, which accounted for 60.1 percent of all imports from the country, rose 24.7 percent annually, it said.
Imports of semiconductors excluding DRAM rose 46 percent while those of DRAM gained 1.7 percent, it added.
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