South Korean exports took a beating in 2023, dropping for the third time in five years as the global economy slowed.
Yet it was the nation’s forgotten automotive sector that softened the blow and brought outbound trade to the U.S. to within a whisker of overtaking China. As demand for electric vehicles continues to grow, expect this relationship among long-standing allies to deepen.
Semiconductors have long been a mainstay of South Korea’s economy, but much of those are sent to China and Southeast Asia, where they’re assembled into electronics devices from smartphones to computers and then shipped back overseas to final customers across the globe. This flow of components slumped last year and overseas sales of chips dropped 24%. Cars and machinery are helping fill the void.