SEOUL, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's exports posted a double-digit increase for the seventh consecutive month thanks to demand for semiconductors and ships, a government report showed Tuesday.
Exports, which account for about half of the Asia's No.4 economy, jumped 19.5 percent from a year earlier to 48.85 billion U.S. dollars in July, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
The overseas shipment maintained a double-digit expansion since January and kept an upward trend for nine months in a row.
Imports advanced 14.5 percent to 38.2 billion dollars, sending the trade surplus to 10.65 billion dollars last month. The trade balance stayed in black for 66 months through July.
The double-digit growth in exports was caused by strong demand for locally-made semiconductors, which led the biggest-ever earnings of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in the April-June quarter.
Chip exports surged 57.8 percent over the year to 7.89 billion dollars in July, marking the country's second-biggest monthly shipment. Given the solid chip demand, the earnings surprises for Samsung and SK Hynix were forecast to continue in the third quarter.
Ship exports more than tripled at 6.09 billion dollars in July compared with a year ago, leading the overall exports growth.
Excluding the chip and ship demand, the country's exports grew 2.9 percent in July from a year ago, indicating a strong dependence on a small number of export items.
Auto exports gained 7.5 percent on demand from the European Union (EU) and Latin American countries that offset weaker demand from the United States.
Exports for general machinery, petrochemicals, steel product and display panels increased last month, but those for home appliances and telecommunication devices, including smartphones, logged a double-digit reduction as firms expanded production in overseas factories.
By country, exports to India soared 79.2 percent over the year to 1.58 billion dollars in July, recording the biggest-ever shipment to the country. Those to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members posted the second-biggest figure of 8.36 billion dollars.
The percentage of dependence on the ASEAN member countries and India for exports rose to 20.4 percent in July from 17.7 percent tallied a year earlier.
Exports to China and the United States, South Korea's top two trading partners, grew 6.6 percent and 7.0 percent respectively last month. The dependence percentage on the two nations fell from 37.7 percent to 33.7 percent.
During the January-July period, trade surplus amounted to 55.7 billion dollars, almost unchanged from 55.6 billion dollars tallied in the same period of last year.
Exports jumped 16.3 percent over the year to 328.1 billion dollars in the January-July period, while imports soared 20.3 percent to 272.4 billion dollars.
