7월 수출 11％↓...8개월 연속 감소

Korea's exports plunged last month by 11 percent from a year ago.
Again it was mainly a decline in semiconductors, which account for a huge proportion of the country's exports.
And with Japan piling on by cutting Korea off from key semiconductor materials, things are not likely to get better, at least in the short term.
Kim Da-mi has more.
South Korea's exports fell in July for the eighth-consecutive month.
The trade ministry said on Thursday that the country's outbound shipments tumbled eleven percent on-year last month.
Exports were tallied at around 46-billion U.S. dollars,... down from the 52 billion seen a year earlier.
The ministry attributed the fall... to slumping semiconductor prices as well as the U.S.-China trade war.
South Korea's chip exports plummeted 28 percent on-year in July,... a wider drop compared to the month of June.
Imports fell 2-point-7 percent on-year last month to around 44 billion dollars.
But Japan's export curbs were not the main reason behind the fall in July.
"Before the trade restrictions were announced, Korean firms reported that they had about 3 month's worth of inventory of these chemicals, that's what they're using currently. And I do not expect the trade restrictions to affect the semiconductor industry until at the earliest around September."
Automobile and bio-health exports were the lone bright spots,... increasing 22 percent and 10 percent respectively.
In fact, automobile exports rose for the fourth-straight month,... a winning streak that hasn't been seen since 2017.
By country, exports to China fell over 16 percent on-year in July, with those to the U.S. inching down zero-point-7 percent.
KIM Da-mi, Arirang News.