SEOUL, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea maintained a trend of trade surplus for 44 months in a row due to faster fall in imports and exports, a customs data showed Thursday.
Trade surplus was 8.9 billion U.S. dollars in September, keeping the surplus trend for the 44th consecutive month since February 2012, according to Korea Customs Service.
Exports slumped 8.4 percent from a year earlier to 43.5 billion dollars in September, while imports plunged 21.8 percent to 34.6 billion dollars.
Shipments of semiconductors and cars increased 0.9 percent and 0.5 percent each last month, but those for ships and petroleum products tumbled more than 20 percent. Telecommunication devices, like smartphones, logged a 4.9 percent decline in exports last month.
Exports to China, South Korea's largest trade partner, slid 5 percent in September, and those to the United States and the Middle East dipped 3.6 percent and 13.2 percent respectively.
Shipments to Japan tumbled 24.4 percent year-on-year in September due to the sharp weakness of the Japanese currency compared with the South Korean currency.
Capital goods imports inched up 0.01 percent, but consumer goods imports declined 5.4 percent. Imports of raw materials plunged 36.2 percent on lower prices of crude oil, imports of which tumbled 52 percent.
