South Korea Reports Kimchi Trade Surplus for First Time in 12 Years | Be Korea-savvy

South Korea Reports Kimchi Trade Surplus for First Time in 12 Years


Packages of kimchi products are displayed at a supermarket in Seoul in this file photo taken on April 21, 2021. (Yonhap)

Packages of kimchi products are displayed at a supermarket in Seoul in this file photo taken on April 21, 2021. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Korea Bizwire)Last year’s Korean Wave fever led to record-breaking kimchi exports, data showed Monday.

The Korea Customs Service and the food industry reported that last year’s kimchi exports reached US$159.9 million, up by 10.7 percent from the previous year.

Kimchi exports have been increasing for the past six years.

In 2020, kimchi exports skyrocketed to $144.5 million, up 37.6 percent from the previous year, setting a new eight-year high. This record, again, was topped the following year.

Sorted by destination, 50.1 percent of kimchi exports went to Japan ($80.12 million), followed by the U.S. ($28.25 million), Hong Kong ($7.72 million) and Taiwan ($6.91 million).

Last year’s kimchi imports reached $140.74 million, down by 7.7 percent from the previous year. The drop was by far the largest since 2014 (-11.1 percent).

The kimchi trade balance reached a surplus of $19.17 million. It is the first surplus on record in the 12 years since the global financial crisis in 2009.

Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>