Tech & AI
South Korea's quarterly current-account surplus tops Germany and Japan combined for the first time as chip exports nearly triple
Korea's $116.6 billion surplus in April–June trailed only China's, with semiconductor shipments up 181.6% from a year earlier.
HedgeWeekly Tech & AI Desk ·
South Korea ran a current-account surplus of $116.63 billion in the second quarter of 2026, more than Germany and Japan earned together, according to cross-country comparisons of official balance-of-payments data reported in Seoul on Sunday. The current account measures a country's net earnings from trade in goods and services plus income flows from abroad. Germany posted $52.28 billion and Japan $50.62 billion in April–June, leaving their combined $102.9 billion roughly $13.7 billion short of Korea's figure. It is the first time this has happened since comparable quarterly data begin in early 1996.
Only China, at $193.72 billion, recorded a bigger quarterly surplus. Korea's surplus was about four times the $28.39 billion it booked a year earlier, while Germany's grew 11.9% and Japan's 5%. Over the first half, Korea's cumulative surplus reached $191.01 billion, again second only to China.
The driver is memory chips. Korea's semiconductor exports rose 181.6% year on year to $113.89 billion in the second quarter, according to government statistics, and climbed a further 218.7% to $148.02 billion in the third quarter, as AI data-centre demand pushed up chip prices. The IMF's October World Economic Outlook projects a 2026 surplus of about $421.9 billion for Korea, equal to 18.8% of GDP, the highest ratio on its records going back to 1980. The Bank of Korea said on October 22 that the full-year surplus would exceed its earlier $450 billion forecast.
Why it matters: the numbers show how concentrated Korea's external accounts have become on a single AI-linked product, just as investors question the pace of AI spending and Korean chip groups have shed market value this month. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix report quarterly results this week, and their guidance on memory prices and high-bandwidth memory demand will indicate whether export momentum can hold into 2027. A surplus of this size also feeds debates over the won, foreign-exchange policy and trade frictions; any slowdown in hyperscaler chip orders would show up quickly in Korea's trade data.