South Korea posts 3 month high current account surplus in October.

South Korea’s current account surplus rose to the highest level in 3 months in October thanks to strong auto and other Key product exports, the central bank said Friday.

According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), the current account stood at US$5.37B in October, rising from US$3.95B in September.

The October surplus marked the highest record since July when the figure hit US$5.82B.

The current account has been staying in the black for the 9th month running after rebounding from a US$780M deficit in January, 2010.

For the period from January to October, the cumulative surplus amounted to US$29B, already beating the central bank’s target for Y 2010 at US$21B.

The sharp gain came as the South Korean economy continued with strong exports, thanks to which the nation’s goods balance posted a surplus of US$6.54B, up from US$5.57B a month ago.

The gain in the goods balance was attributed to an increase in passenger car and information & communication equipment exports, the BOK said.

The service account, however, marked a deficit of US$1.69B, narrowing from September’s US$1.96B deficit, mostly due to an increase in earnings from freight and a decrease in payments for education related expenditure.

The income account continued to post a surplus, which widened from the previous month’s US$0.51B to US$0.76B, the BOK said.

The current transfers account deficit also widened slightly to US$0.24B from the previous month’s US$0.16B, the central bank added.

Meanwhile, the capital and financial account, which measures cross-border investments, in October 2010 shifted from the previous month’s net inflow of US$0.17B to a net outflow of US$3.96B.

With the October figure, the capital and financial account for the first ten months of Y 2010 recorded a net outflow of US$2.99B.

The South Korean economy is expected to register a 6.2% growth in the second half, but the growth pace will likely slow down to around 4.3%, experts have been forecasting. —Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com

Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Nov 27th, 2010and filed underAnalysis, Latest News.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site