By Jihoon Lee and Cynthia Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s export progress is predicted to have risen in December for a fifteenth straight month, however analysts really feel momentum might average within the yr forward as considerations about potential U.S. tariffs warmth up, a Reuters ballot confirmed on Friday.
Outbound shipments from Asia’s fourth largest economic system are forecast to have risen 4.0% in December from a yr earlier, after a achieve of 1.4% in November, the median discovering in a survey of 10 economists.
That will be the fifteenth successive month of annual export progress however analysts see the speed slowing within the coming yr as demand for South Korean items is predicted to weaken, apart from semiconductors, analysts mentioned.
“Trade policy uncertainties heightened since Donald Trump was elected in the United States continue to pose risks for exporters,” mentioned Ha Keon-hyeong, an analyst at Shinhan Securities.
“It’s part of the reason why some manufacturers are cutting down on production.”
The U.S. president-elect has pledged to impose huge tariffs on imports from main buying and selling companions together with China, South Korea’s largest buying and selling companion.
The primary main exporting economic system to report commerce figures every month, South Korea is about to concern December month-to-month information on January 1 at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT).
“Car production in December was hit by labor union strikes and export momentum in general is weakening, except for chips and information technology products,” mentioned Stephen Lee, chief economist at Meritz Securities Analysis Heart.
The survey additionally forecast imports to have risen 4.6% in December, after November’s fall of two.4%.
The survey’s median estimate of the commerce stability got here in at a surplus of $4.21 billion.
(Polling by Susobhan Sarkar in Bengaluru and Jihoon Lee in Seoul; Enhancing by Clarence Fernandez)
