According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) South Korea logged a current account surplus for the 31st consecutive month in September as exports rose and travel deficit fell, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The current account surplus reached US$7.62 billion last month, compared with a revised $7.2 billion in August, according to the preliminary data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade.

With the September data, the country's accumulated current account surplus during the first nine months of the year totaled $61.86 billion, compared with $55.05 billion in the previous year. It also accounted for roughly 74 percent of the central bank's $84 billion forecast for the year.

The balance of goods came in at $7.73 billion in September, growing from a $7.37 billion surplus in the previous month.

Exports rose 6.9 percent on-year as shipments of steel and machinery products increased. The value of shipments of home appliance products and oil products slipped.Imports jumped 8 percent from the previous year.

The service account, which includes outlays by South Koreans on overseas trips, logged a deficit of $278.8 million, narrowing from a $732.7 million deficit in August.

The fall in deficit came as the country's deficit in the travel account shrank to $213.9 million from $766.9 million. The country's travel account income soared to a record $1.77 billion.

"There was a base effect given that August is the season for overseas tuition payments and summer holidays. A continued influx of Chinese tourists also attributed to the trend," noted a BOK official.

The primary income account, which tracks wages of foreign workers and dividend payments overseas, tumbled to $606.7 million from $1.05 billion a month earlier, according to the data.

The latest data comes amid growing concerns over weakening exports, a key growth engine for the country's trade-reliant economy.

Third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data showed that exports slipped 2.6 percent on-quarter, marking the first on-quarter contraction since a 1.1 percent decline in the third quarter of 2013.

Jung Joon, director of the central bank's Monetary and Financial Statistics Division, said that there may be differences in the two data as they are compiled by different standards.

"Considering currency factors, exports are doing pretty well," he said.

mil@yna.co.kr

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