Trade balance in South Korea

Servicio de Aduanas de Corea (KCS) · Monthly · Importance 30

30.39 (Jul-26) ABS · $B · Mensual · CSV

About this indicator

Source	Korea Customs Service (KCS)
Frequency	Monthly
Release	Preliminar (잠정치) hacia el dia 1-2 del mes siguiente y confirmado (확정치) hacia el dia 15, en el comunicado mensual de comercio exterior de la aduana coreana
What it is	South Korea's trade balance measures the gap between goods exports and imports on a customs-cleared basis over a month, in billions of US dollars. A positive balance is a surplus and a negative one a deficit. It is released by the Korea Customs Service in its monthly foreign-trade report.
How it's calculated	Balance = exports minus imports for the month (customs-cleared values). The customs service publishes a preliminary figure (잠정치) around the 1st-2nd of the following month and a confirmed figure (확정치) around the 15th. Values come from the release table (millions of USD) and are shown in billions of dollars.
Market implications	Korea is a heavily export-driven economy (semiconductors, cars, petrochemicals), so its trade balance is a gauge of the global export cycle and weighs on the won. A widening surplus tends to support the won, while a deterioration often signals softer external demand or costlier energy imports.
Limitations	The preliminary figure (잠정치) is revised in the confirmed print (확정치), and the two can differ by a few tenths. It is a goods series on a customs basis, not the current-account balance, which includes services and income and is released by the Bank of Korea.