S. Korea Trade Volume to Pass $1 Trillion
By wchung | 19 Apr, 2026

South Korea posted a record $533.4 billion in trade during the the first half of this year, putting the nation on track to surpass the $1 trillion mark by the end of November. That would make 2011 the first trillion-dollar year for S. Korea.

Surprisingly, imports outpaced exports this year rising 26.6% to 258 billion. Exports rose only 24.4 percent to $275.4 billion, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy Friday. In 2010 trade volume stood at $466.5 billion midyear, then grew 9.7 percent in the second half. If a similar trend holds for this year, Korean trade will cross the trillion-dollar mark by Thanksgiving.

The forecast for 2011 has been revised upward to $1.09 trillion, based on projected exports of $557 billion and imports of $528 billion. The resulting trade surplus would be $29 billion.

In 1946 S. Korea’s trade volume was just $53 million, with exports of $3.5 million and imports of $49.5 million. The nation didn’t hit the $1 billion mark until 1967. Trade volume hit $10 billion in 1974 and $100 billion in 1988.

S. Korea will have taken only 23 years to go from $100 billion to $1 trillion. China is the only other nation to reach the milestone in as short a span. France, the UK and the Netherlands all took over 30 years to expand trade volume from $100 billion (reached, respectively in 2006, 2007 and 2007) to $1 trillion. The other top trading nations — the U.S., Germany, Japan and Italy — all took years longer.

The world’s top 10 trading nations are the U.S., China, Germany, Japan, France, U.K., S. Korea, Italy, the Netherlands and Canada. At its current rate of trade growth Korea will overtake the U.K. and France within a year to rank among the world’s five trading powers.