South Korea's exports surged 43.7 per cent year on year to $18.4 billion in the first ten days of May, the Korea Customs Service reported on Tuesday morning in Seoul, with semiconductors carrying the bulk of the increase. Outbound shipments of memory chips were up 81 per cent over the May 1-10 window, lifted by hyperscale data-centre demand and a continuing AI-server build-out across the United States, China and the Middle East.
Exports to the United States rose 39 per cent, to mainland China 32 per cent and to the European Union 51 per cent. The breadth of the increase — visible across cars (up 22 per cent), petrochemicals (up 14 per cent) and ships (up 109 per cent) — has rebuilt confidence in the durability of the Korean export cycle just as the geopolitical backdrop has darkened.
Trade Minister Cheong In-kyo, briefing reporters in Sejong on Tuesday afternoon, said the surge was "broadly diversified" across both products and geographies and represented "the strongest first-ten-day reading we have ever recorded". The minister cautioned that the comparison base is unusually low — the first ten days of May 2025 included a national holiday cluster — but said the absolute dollar level confirmed a "real recovery, not a base effect".
The Korean won, which has been on a defensive footing for most of the past month, strengthened 0.4 per cent to 1,348 against the dollar on the export data. KOSPI, fresh from Monday's record close at 7,822, edged a further 0.6 per cent higher in early Tuesday trade before easing back. Semiconductor leader SK Hynix added 1.8 per cent and Samsung Electronics 1.2 per cent.
Economists at HSBC and Nomura now both expect South Korea's second-quarter GDP to come in above 2.5 per cent year on year, against a Bank of Korea baseline of 2.1 per cent. Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, whose 2.0 per cent annual growth call has been a rolling reference for analyst forecasts, told the National Assembly on Monday that "the upside risks now exceed the downside" on the growth outlook.
The Iran war remains the chief downside swing factor. South Korea is the world's fifth-largest crude importer and the Iran shock has produced a current-account surplus narrower by roughly $4 billion month on month since February. The Bank of Korea has used the rest of its dollar buffer to keep won volatility within the band that has held since the 2022 stress episode.
A separate piece of trade news on Tuesday — a memorandum of understanding signed in Washington committing Korean shipyards to support the revival of US naval shipbuilding capacity — adds a second leg to the export story. Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries are expected to play lead roles. The MOU does not specify financial figures but officials briefed it as "multi-decade".