South Korea’s exports hit record high on AI boom

South Korea’s exports surged to a new monthly high in September, climbing 83.5 percent year‑on‑year to $120.9 billion, according to preliminary customs data released on Thursday. The spike was driven largely by semiconductor shipments, which accounted for almost half of the total export value and rose more than 260 percent to $60.3 billion. The record eclipses the previous peak of $102.25 billion set in June, and brings cumulative exports for the first nine months of the year to $814.5 billion—already surpassing the full‑year total of $709.7 billion recorded in 2025. The trade surplus for the same period stood at $49.85 billion, underscoring the strength of the nation’s export‑oriented economy.

The surge reflects the global scramble for memory chips that power artificial‑intelligence applications, a sector in which South Korea’s two leading firms, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, dominate. Together they hold roughly 80 percent of the high‑bandwidth memory market and 60 percent of the dynamic random‑access memory market, according to Counterpoint Research. This dominance has helped the country’s economy run “red‑hot” amid a worldwide shortage of AI‑related chips, contributing to a 26.4 percent year‑on‑year rise in nominal GDP for the April‑June quarter—the strongest quarterly growth in five decades. The Ministry of Finance and Economy projects real GDP growth of 3 percent for 2026, the best performance since 2017 when pandemic‑related anomalies are excluded.

Trade Minister Kim Jeong‑kwan hailed the achievement as evidence of the resilience and competitiveness of South Korean industries, while cautioning that rising global protectionism and Middle‑East tensions could pose risks to future export performance. The AI‑driven export boom has also buoyed the domestic stock market, with the Kospi index climbing nearly 60 percent this year, positioning South Korea among the world’s top‑performing bourses. The government remains optimistic about reaching the $1 trillion annual export target, but acknowledges that external geopolitical and trade dynamics will be critical variables shaping the outlook.

⚡ Effects Interpreter