SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- South Korea’s export posted a double-digit fall last month, continuing a downward trend for the ninth consecutive month, a government report showed Sunday.
Export, which accounts for about half of the export-driven economy, diminished 13.6 percent from a year earlier to 44.2 billion U.S. dollars in August, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
The outbound shipment kept sliding for nine straight months since December last year.
Import slipped 4.2 percent over the year to 42.48 billion dollars in August, sending the trade surplus to 1.72 billion dollars. The trade balance stayed in the black for 91 months in a row.
The global trade dispute weakened world trade, hitting hard the South Korean economy that relies heavily on export for growth.
Japan’s export curbs had little impact on the export-driven economy. Japan removed South Korea early last month from its whitelist of trusted trading partners, which are given preferential export procedure. In response, Seoul also dropped Tokyo off its whitelist of trusted export partners.
The Seoul-Tokyo trade spat was sparked by Japan’s tighter regulation in July over its export to South Korea of three materials vital to produce memory chips and display panels, the mainstay of the South Korean export.