S. Korea bio-health exports increased by 23.7%, the export intensity expands

[Newsmp] Exports in the bio-health sector have increased by more than 20% this year, ranking the top 10.

The Korea International Trade Association published a report Tuesday, assessment of imports and exports during the first half of 2022 and projections for the second half.

In its report, from January to May, Korea’s total exports amounted to $296.2 billion, an increase of 17.8% compared to the same period last year.

The report says that despite global difficult conditions such as the war in Russia and Ukraine and pandemic lockdown measures in China, the exports performed strongly while the volume and unit prices continued to rise at the same time. However, it fell short of the annual increase in exports last year (25.7%).

Among them, exports of the top 15 products were $229.4 billion, up 19.7% over their 2021 levels, but the increase in annual exports (28.0%) was far below last year.

The bio-health sector, in particular, which fell below the average growth rate for all industries and the 15 products last year, has rather increased its growth rate this year.

In the past five months, exports amounted to $7.9 billion, a 23.7% increase year-on-year. This is higher than the annual growth of 16.8% last year.

In addition, this was above the 17.8% increase in total exports and 19.7% in the average growth rate of the 15 products.

Of the 15 industries, bio-health achieved the fourth-highest growth rate after steel (91.1%), wireless communication apparatus (41.5%), and petroleum product (32.0%).

The report evaluates that the exports in the bio-health sector soared as the OEM production of biopharmaceuticals and sales of biosimilars increased.

As a result, the proportion of the bio-health sector among the 15 products also rose by 0.9%p from 2.5% last year to 3.4% this year (only from January to May 2022).

Bio-health’s exports were the 10th largest after Semiconductor ($56.7 billion), Petrochemistry (25.5 billion), Steel ($24.9 billion), General machinery ($22.1 billion), Automobile ($20.4 billion), Petroleum product ($17.5 billion), Automobile spare parts ($9.9 billion), Flat plane display ($9.2 billion), and Wireless communication apparatus ($7.9 billion).