Korea ranks 8th in trade volume in 1st half

The growth rate of the world’s import only slightly rebounded in the first half of this year, new data showed.

In a report entitled “Trends of major countries’ trade in the first half of 2014” that cites the World Trade Organization, the Institute for International Trade under the Korea International Trade Association said on Sunday that the volume of import by 71 major countries in this year’s first half amounted to 8.726 trillion U.S. dollars, up 2.1 percent year-on-year. The rate is larger than the import growth rate in last year’s first half, but lags far behind the annual average growth rate in the first half of the past five years (2010-2014) since the global financial crisis.

“The world’s import has not expanded as much as it was expected this year, and hence Korea cannot afford to expect its export environment improve in the short term,” said Kang Nae-yeong, researcher at the trend analysis team at the institute, adding, “Korea needs to step up effort to boost the competitiveness of its export price, including stabilization of exchange rate and cost cutting, and to develop new markets.”

With international trade showing signs of slow-paced recovery, Korea posted 546.4 billion dollars in trade volume combining both export and import in this year’s first half, ranking eighth in the world overall. Korea posted 283.3 billion dollars in export, up 2.5 percent year-on-year, and 263.1 billion dollars in import, up 2.6 percent. China ranked first in trade volume with 2.021 trillion dollars, followed by the U.S. with 1.98 trillion dollars.”

Since the global financial crisis, countries have presented different paces of recovery in their export. In this year’s first half, China, Korea and the U.S. saw their export volumes increase by 59.2 percent, 32.4 percent, and 22.9 percent, respectively from 2008, displaying robust growth pace. In comparison, Germany, Italy, France and Japan saw their export volume decline from 2008.