Merchandise Imports in Korea
Merchandise imports in Korea were worth USD 632 billion in 2024, compared to USD 526 billion ten years earlier, and they averaged USD 543 billion over the last decade. For more information on imports, visit our dedicated page.
Korea Merchandise Imports Chart
Note: This chart displays Imports (USD billion) for Korea from 2024 to 2023.
Source: Macrobond.
Korea Merchandise Imports Data
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Merchandise Imports (USD bn) | 468 | 615 | 731 | 643 | 632 |
Merchandise Imports (ann. var. %) | -7.1 | 31.5 | 18.9 | -12.1 | -1.7 |
Merchandise exports increase in June
Latest reading: Merchandise exports rose 4.3% on an annual basis in June, rebounding from a 1.3% decline in May, though undershooting market expectations. The result marked the best print since December 2024, mainly driven by robust semiconductor exports—the country’s main export—due to solid AI demand. On the flipside, shipments of steel products shrank due to U.S. tariffs. Meanwhile, merchandise imports rose 3.3% in annual terms in June (May: -5.3% yoy), marking the strongest result since August 2024. As a result, the merchandise trade balance improved from the previous month, recording a USD 9.1 billion surplus in June (May 2025: USD 6.9 billion surplus; June 2024: USD 8.3 billion surplus). Lastly, the trend pointed up, with the 12-month trailing merchandise trade balance recording a USD 56.7 billion surplus in June, compared to the USD 55.8 billion surplus in May.
Panelist insight: Commenting on the outlook, Nomura’s Jeong Woo Park said: “Beyond Q2, amid a pick-up in AI demand led by Nvidia ramping up its Blackwell series, we believe surging chip prices will continue to support a recovery in chip exports, which we believe could provide an offset to the tariff shock. Furthermore, while the US tariff threat is likely to remain a potential downside risk to the export outlook as we approach the tariff negotiation deadline (8 July), we expect the tariff negotiation to result in lower effective tariffs, including lower tariffs on auto sectors and the continued exemption of tech products.”
How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects Korean merchandise imports projections for the next ten years from a panel of 5 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable merchandise imports forecast available for Korean merchandise imports.
Download one of our sample reports to visualize what a Consensus Forecast is and see our Korean merchandise imports projections.
Want to get access to the full dataset of Korean merchandise imports forecasts? Send an email to info@focus-economics.com.
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