South Korea’s exports of information technology products rose from a year earlier in August, continuing their on-year growth for the 13th consecutive month, the government said Thursday.

Outbound shipments of IT products reached $15.11 billion last month, up 7.5 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.

South Korea’s trade surplus in the IT sector widened to $8.16 billion, the second highest in the country’s history, as its imports rose 4.1 percent on-year to $6.96 billion.

The ministry attributed the growth in exports to a large increase in outbound shipments of smartphones and semiconductors.

Exports of mobile handsets rose 2 percent on-year to reach $2.23 billion last month, with outbound shipments of smartphones surging 20.5 percent on-year to $1.04 billion, according to the ministry.

Shipments of semiconductors also spiked 21 percent on-year to a record $5.41 billion, partly on a surge in shipments of memory and system memory chips. (Yonhap News)