Korea’s diagnostic reagents have achieved a trade surplus for 21 consecutive months.
Monthly exports of diagnostic reagents (HS3822) in December amounted to $249.15 million, down 19.6% from a year earlier, continuing negative double-digit growth for the fourth consecutive month, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.
Although the year-on-year growth rate was sluggish as the exports of diagnostic reagents exceeded $300 million in December 2020, it was the only month in the 12 months of last year that exceeded $200 million.
Thanks to this, cumulative exports for 12 months totaled $2.0466 billion, down 5.7% year-on-year, but surpassed $2 billion for the second consecutive year.
Imports are also steadily increasing. In December, the imports were $85.31 million, down 2.3% year-on-year, but it reached an all-time high.
Imports of diagnostic reagents have maintained a double-digit increase for 18 consecutive months from March 2020 to August 2021 but decreased to around 5% since September, and they reached the lowest level since February 2020 in December 2021.
However, annual imports amounted to $886.05 million, an increase of 17.4% year-on-year, approaching the $900 million mark.
Diagnostic reagents have been in the black for 21 consecutive months since April 2020, but the surplus has been decreasing since April 2021, when the base effect occurred.
During the nine months from April to December, July was the only month that the surplus was higher from the same period last year.
The surplus in December also dropped by nearly 30% than the same period in the previous year, but it reached a year-high of $163.84 million.
Moreover, the annual trade surplus also fell 18.0% year-on-year to $1.16 billion but remained at the $1 billion mark for the second consecutive year.
