MOCIE: Trade surplus for 2000 amounts to $12.1 bil.

The trade surplus for 2000 was unofficially tallied at $12.1 billion. Therefore, Korea has achieved a triple digit trade surplus for 3 years in a row since 1998. Accordingly, the cumulative trade surplus, which amounts to $75.1 billion, for the past 3 years completely off-set the cumulative trade deficit ($66.7 billion) for the period of 1990 through 1997, prior to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) era.

The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) announced Tuesday that the last year¡¯s exports amounted to $172.621 billion (based on customs clearances), up 20.1% compared to the previous year, and imports totaled $160.492 billion, up 34. Exports maintained steady upturn trend in spite of a rapid increase of imports due to high crude oil price. The MOCIE forecast that this year¡¯s exports would reach $191 billion, up 10.7% compared to last year, and imports would increase 12.8% to $181 billion, thus about $10 billion worth of trade surplus would be attained.

Meanwhile, a high ranking government official explained that the macroeconomic indicators such as the consumer price increase rate, trade balance, foreign exchange reserves and the amount of foreign investment were higher than expected, adding that the last year¡¯s economic growth rate of Korea (around 9.0%) was second following Equatorial Guinea which recorded growth of over 10%. He said that the trough of the business cycle might come in the first quarter of this year, while noting that 50% of government purchases of small and mid sized companies¡¯ goods would be made during the first half to assist the shrunken economy.

Lee Byung-Ki eye@donga.com