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Korea posted a current account surplus for the twenty-fourth straight month in February,...
as trade gains widened... and the service account deficit fell.
Hwang Ji-hye has the details. Korea's central bank said Monday...
that the nation posted a current account surplus of over 4-and-a-half billion U.S. dollars
last month. That's up over one billion dollars from January...
and more than double from February of last year.
Exports of goods rose over seven percent from the previous year to 48 billion dollars,...
while imports edged up slightly more than one percent to 42-point-6 billion.
When asked if the surplus was coming from the nation's sluggish domestic demand,...
officials at the central bank attributed subdued imports to stable global commodities prices.
The deficit in the service account, which includes tourism and shipping,... also fell...
helping the nation log a current account surplus for the twenty-fourth straight month.
It posted a deficit of around one-and-a-half billion last month,... compared with a shortfall
of nearly 2-billion in January. The current account data was released based
on a new international standard. Under the new standard, last year's current
account surplus widened to 79-point-8 billion,... up around 9 billion from the previous data.
The central bank said last year's surplus accounted for six percent of the nation's
gross domestic product. The nation's current account surplus has been
acting as a buffer for Korea since the U.S. Federal Reserve has been scaling back its
massive bond-buying stimulus program. Hwang Ji-hye, Arirang News.