South Korea's October trade surplus reached 1.22 billion U.S. dollars, after posting four straight months of trade deficit since June, a report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy showed Monday.
Exports stood at 37.89 billion U.S. dollar, up 10 percent from a year ago, while imports gained 12 percent to 36.67 billion U.S. dollars, the report showed.
Adding October's figure, however, South Korea still posted a cumulative trade deficit of 13.45 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months, compared with a surplus of 13.62 billion U.S. in the same period a year ago.
Meanwhile, the report attributed the surplus to surge in exports of ships and oil products as well as decrease of crude prices.
The ship exports jumped 118 percent on-year to 4.17 billion U.S. dollars, with overseas shipments of oil products and mobile communication equipment surging 45 percent and 14 percent, respectively, it showed.
Oil product exports stood at 3.36 billion U.S. dollars last month thanks to steady demand from China and Southeast Asia, while overseas shipments of mobile telecommunication equipment reached 3.98 billion U.S. dollars.
The ministry said the October surplus also resulted from drop in oil products prices which fell to an average of 98 U.S. dollars per barrel last month from 115 U.S. dollars per barrel in September.
Regarding the area, the report showed that exports to Central and South America rose most, gaining 32.1 percent, while those to the Middle East and Oceania gained 22.4 percent and 20.9 percent each.
Exports to the United States jumped 10.8 percent and South Korea's exports to Japan also gained 5.5 percent.
Meanwhile exports to China and the European Union dropped 1.8 percent and 8.2 percent respectively, the report added.
Source: Xinhua
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