SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s exports for the first 20 days of December fell 8.8% from the comparable period of last year while imports rose 1.9%, customs agency data showed on Wednesday.
The trade balance for the 20-day period stood at a deficit of $6.43 billion.
It was a slower pace of decline in exports than in November, when overseas shipments by Asia’s fourth-largest economy dropped 14.0% from a year earlier, marking the worst drop in 2-1/2 years on cooling demand from major markets such as China.
(Reporting by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Tom Hogue)
