Koreas

Exports jump 83.5 percent to top $120bn for the first time amid ferocious semiconductor demand.

South Korea’s exports have surged to a monthly record amid explosive demand for chips used to power artificial intelligence.

Exports jumped 83.5 percent year-on-year to $120.9bn in September, eclipsing the previous monthly record of $102.25bn set in June, preliminary customs figures showed on Thursday.

Chip shipments accounted for nearly half of exports, soaring more than 260 percent to $60.3bn, according to data from the Korea Customs Service.

Total exports from January through September hit $814.5bn, exceeding those for all of 2025, when exports reached a record $709.7bn.

During the first nine months of the year, the country recorded a trade surplus of $49.85bn.

“This is a valuable achievement that once again demonstrates the strength of our industries and companies, and is thanks to the sweat and efforts of our entrepreneurs who have competed fiercely in the global market,” said Kim Jeong-kwan, South Korea’s minister for trade and industry, in a statement.

“While we expect to achieve $1 trillion in annual exports, the strengthening of global protectionism and tensions in the Middle East remain major variables affecting our exports,” Kim said.

South Korea’s economy has been running red-hot this year amid a global shortage of memory chips used in AI.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy is home to one of the world’s largest semiconductor industries, led by top memory chip makers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.

SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics together control roughly 80 percent of the global market for high-bandwidth memory and 60 percent of the market for dynamic random-access memory, according to Counterpoint Research.

South Korea’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth hit a five-decade high in the April-June quarter, skyrocketing 26.4 percent year-on-year.

South Korea’s Ministry of Finance and Economy has forecast real GDP to grow 3 percent in 2026, which would be the strongest performance since 2017, excluding the outlier years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The AI boom has also propelled the country’s stock market into the ranks of the best-performing bourses this year, with the benchmark Kospi rising nearly 60 percent.

US president’s comments came after he was asked why North Korea can have nuclear weapons when Iran cannot.

United States President Donald Trump has described North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “a friend” and played down concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, saying, “as long as I’m around, he’s going to be fine”.

Trump made the remarks in Washington, DC, on Tuesday after a reporter asked him why North Korea could have nuclear weapons but Iran could not.

“That’s interesting. You know why? Because you had a different president, and they could have stopped him,” he said, referring to previous US administrations.

“He happens to be a friend of mine, Kim Jong Un, he’s a friend of mine. He likes Trump, doesn’t like a lot of other people. I’m about the only person in the entire world that he likes, and I like him,” he said.

He said North Korea’s nuclear capacity was “pretty large” but “not like us”.

“You know what, as long as I’m around, he’s going to be fine,” he added. “You know why? Because he respects me and he likes me.”

South Korea’s Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back said last week that its northern neighbour possessed between 80 and 120 nuclear warheads. The figure is significantly higher than Trump’s recent assertion that Pyongyang has 57 nuclear weapons.

Trump is seeking to re-engage with Kim and secure a win on the international stage as the US and Israel’s war on Iran enters its eighth month.

The US president launched the war along with Israel on February 28, saying Iran could not have a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied seeking a weapon, noting it had signed an agreement with world powers in 2015 that curbed its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. But Trump abandoned the agreement during his first term in 2018.

The US-Israel war on Iran has disrupted global energy supplies, raised fuel costs and hurt Trump’s popularity ahead of the November midterm elections.

Trump held summits with North Korea’s Kim in 2018 and 2019, but diplomacy broke down over US demands that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons. Since then, Kim has expanded his arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles and strengthened his diplomatic footprint by aligning with Russia over its war in Ukraine and tightening relations with China.

Trump had earlier said he planned to hold in-person talks with Kim before the end of the year.

But North Korea has not formally committed to such a meeting.