Back-to Back Decline
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), South Korea reached US$495.5 billion in total value of exports last year, down 5.9% from a year earlier. For reference, it decreased by 8% between 2014 and 2015. For South Korea, such a back-to-back decline was for the first time since 1957 and 1958, when the value dropped by 9.7% and then 25.9%, since records began in 1956.
Last year, South Korea was the eighth-largest among 71 major exporting countries. In the ranking of the countries, South Korea rose from 12th to ninth between 2008 and 2009 and then to seventh in 2010 and sixth in 2015.
The decline in the value of exports from South Korea is mainly attributable to the contraction of international trade that has resulted from low economic growth and trade protectionism. Last year, the 71 countries posted a total value of international trade of US$29.741 trillion, down 2.7% from a year ago, to reach a six-year low.
China was the largest exporting country in the world in 2016, when its exports totaled US$2.0982 trillion with a year-on-year decline of 7.7%. It was followed by the United States (down 3.2% to US$1.4546 trillion), Germany (up 1% to US$1.3396 trillion), Japan (up 3.2% to US$644.9 billion), the Netherlands (US$569.2 billion), Hong Kong (US$516.7 billion) and France (US$500.9 billion).