Doha: South Korea’s exports of information and communication technology (ICT) products jumped 14% from a year earlier in September on the record-high performance of semiconductors, data showed Tuesday. Outbound shipments of ICT products reached $25.43 billion last month, marking the highest export volume for any September.
According to Qatar News Agency, imports gained 10.4% on-year to $13.78 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $11.65 billion in the sector. The ministry attributed the sharp increase in exports to record shipments of semiconductors, which spiked 21.9% on-year to $16.62 billion on higher memory chip prices amid growing investments in artificial intelligence (AI) servers by global companies.
Exports of display products gained 1.3% on-year to $1.92 billion in the month, buoyed by strong organic light-emitting diode (OLED) demand, it added. In contrast, exports of computers and peripheral devices fell 10.1% to $1.47 billion due to base effects from last year’s surge of AI data center-related solid state drive (SSD) products.