South Korea`s exports to China fell in the first 20 days of February and overall outbound shipments per working day sank as the coronavirus outbreak began to affect supply chains, dashing hopes for recovery in exports that had been in losing streak for 14 months, according to Korea Customs Service data on Friday.

In absolute value terms, exports of the Asia’s fourth-largest economy gained 12.4 percent on year to 26.3 billion in the cited period, led mostly by chips and auto parts. The office attributed the rebound to additional working days. February this year has 15.5 working days, compared with 12.5 days a year ago when the Lunar New Year’s fell on the month. Daily average shipment fell 9.3 percent on year.

Exports to China, Korea’s largest trading partner, fell 3.7 percent on year in the first 20 days of the month. Shipments to Singapore tumbled 26.7 percent.

In contrast, exports to the U.S. surged 24.2 percent over the same period, along with an increase in shipments to Vietnam (19.8 percent), EU (12.8 percent) and Japan (7.1 percent).

By product, export gains were driven by semiconductor chips (15.4 percent), auto parts (40.6 percent), and wireless telecom devices (8.2 percent), while decreases were seen in petrochemicals (-4.1 percent), passenger cars (-0.1 percent), and ships (-29.0 percent).

Korea’s imports increased 4.7 percent on year to $25.6 billion over the same period, leading to a trade surplus of about $70 billion.

Among import items, increases were led by gas (5.0 percent), petroleum products (52.1 percent) and passenger cars (56.9 percent) and decreases by crude oil (-1.9 percent), machinery (-4.5 percent) and coal (-32.7 percent).

By Minu Kim

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