South Korea's Exports Are Seriously Affected By The Sino US Trade Conflict And Global Economic Deterioration.

South Korea's Chosun Daily quoted the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a report that the global commodity export volume in the first quarter of this year (2019) was 4 trillion 565 billion dollars, which was 2.7% lower than that in the same period (2018). It was the first time in the past 3 years that the decline in Korea's exports was the highest among the top 10 exporting countries in the world.

It was pointed out that global exports were affected by the financial crisis in the southern Europe and the severe drop in oil prices, which decreased by 13.1% and 2.7% respectively in 2015 and 2016. After the recovery in 2017, they maintained a growth rate of more than 10% for two consecutive years. However, the impact of the deterioration of the global trade environment began to decline again at the beginning of this year. This year, from 1 to April, South Korea's exports amounted to US $181 billion 485 million, a decrease of 6.9% compared with the same period last year. The export of Korea depended heavily on semiconductors. So far this year, semiconductor prices have dropped by more than 20%, resulting in the export of South Korea from sixth in the world in 2018 to seventh in 2019 from 1 to April.

In addition, Germany, the world's third largest exporter, declined by 6.4% from 1 to April this year, while Japan and Italy also lost more than 5%, while France, Holland and the United Kingdom decreased by 2~3% respectively. On the contrary, the world's largest and two largest exporters, and the United States and China's exports to trade conflict countries grew by 0.5% and 0.2% respectively. But in March, the growth of mainland China's exports was 14.2%, and the 2.7% and 1.3% reduction in April and June respectively.

According to the analysis, there is no sign of improvement in the current global trade situation, and the export may continue to decrease in the second half of this year, and at present, the Sino US trade conflict has not yet been resolved. Japan also takes export restrictions on Korea. In the short term, it is hard for the Korean economy to have an optimistic outlook.