Experts: South Korea's semiconductor exports to China are reduced and the overall growth rate is lowered

Yonhap News Agency, Seoul, November 28th. South Korea’s semiconductor exports to China decreased in the first nine months of this year, lowering the overall growth rate of semiconductor exports. In this regard, experts pointed out that it is necessary to reduce the dependence on exports to China through the diversification of semiconductor export products and export targets.

According to a statistical report released by the Korea International Trade Association on the 28th, South Korea’s semiconductor exports to China from January to September this year amounted to US$42.025 billion, accounting for 40.6% of South Korea’s total semiconductor exports, an increase of 1.3 percentage points year-on-year. On the contrary, the proportion of exports to the United States (US$6.71 billion) decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 6.5%, and exports to Japan (US$1.069 billion) decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 1%. Although exports to Singapore (4.3%), Taiwan (9.4%), EU (3%) and other places have increased, the growth rate is less than 2 percentage points.

Experts believe that the high dependence on exports of semiconductor items to China is the main reason for the overall decrease in semiconductor exports this year. Since the beginning of this year, the monthly export growth rate of South Korea's semiconductors has continued to decline, and has turned negative since August. The cumulative export value in the first nine months has decreased by 19.1% year-on-year. During the same period, semiconductor exports to China decreased by 16.3%. Exports to Hong Kong, China also dropped sharply by 41.2%, to only US$15.635 billion.

Zhang Changzhi, director of the trend analysis department of the International Trade and Commerce Research Institute, believes that the current Korean semiconductor industry is still dominated by memory chips, and is highly sensitive to the economic trends of export destination countries. The system chip industry will diversify the types of export products, and the export market will naturally become more diversified. (Finish)

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