By Jihoon Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s exports are expected to have fallen for the first time in 16 months on U.S. tariff uncertainty and a slower tech sector, a Reuters poll showed, underscoring risks for trade-reliant economies from the Trump administration’s policies.
Outbound shipments are forecast to have decreased 13.5% this month from a year earlier, after a gain of 6.6% last month, according to a median of 18 economists in a Reuters poll released on Friday.
That would be the first year-on-year fall since September 2023, and comes amid signs of slowing growth momentum in recent months on uncertainty over U.S. tariff policies.
“Last month, exports expanded on front-loaded shipments of semiconductors and computers before (anticipated) tariffs, and that is judged to have affected this month’s performance,” said Ha Keon-hyeong, an economist at Shinhan Securities.
U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to impose stiff tariffs on major trading partners, such as Mexico, Canada and China, which are also expected to affect South Korean companies running factories in those countries.
The double-digit percentage fall in Korean shipments projected for the full month, which would be the biggest in 1-1/2 years, was also exacerbated by unfavourable calendar effects from four days of holidays this week, economists said.
Monthly data out of Asia’s fourth-largest economy is often distorted in January and February by timing changes in Lunar New Year holidays affecting annual comparison with working day differences.
During the first 20 days of this month, exports were already down 5.1%, as shipments to the United States and China fell 9.6% and 4.9%, respectively.
“This might raise concerns over Korea’s export trend, especially heading into turbulent waters with potential U.S. trade tariffs under Trump 2.0 as well as a slowing IT cycle,” Standard Chartered economist Park Chong-hoon said, referring to the early data.
Earlier on Friday, South Korea’s chip giant, Samsung Electronics, projected its first-quarter earnings to be limited by weak memory chip business conditions, with the market recovering from the second quarter.
The survey also showed imports falling 9.9% in January to mark the biggest drop in 10 months, after rising 3.3% in December.
The median estimate for the monthly trade balance stood at a deficit of $1.28 billion, which would snap 19 straight months in the black. In the previous month, the nation posted a trade surplus of $6.49 billion surplus, a six-month high.
South Korea, the first major exporting economy to report monthly trade figures, is scheduled to report data for January on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT).
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
