Korea’s current account surplus widened to a record high in June as imports declined amid falling oil prices and the bleaker economic outlook, the central bank said Friday.

The current account surplus reached $5.84 billion in June, up from a revised $3.57 billion the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea. The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade.

The June data marked the largest surplus ever and the fifth straight month of the surplus run, according to the BOK.

The current account turned to a deficit in January after it remained in the black for the 22nd straight month in December 2011 on exports, which account for about 50 percent of Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

But the eurozone debt crisis and China’s slowing growth are blurring prospects of the Korean economy. In the second quarter, exports declined 0.6 percent on-quarter, after growing 3 percent in the preceding quarter.

The record surplus in June cannot be seen as totally positive as imports declined amid marginal growth of exports, indicating that demand is weakening amid the bleak economic outlook, analysts said.

But the BOK claimed that the surplus for June should not be interpreted as negative because the volume of imports increased last month even though their prices retreated amid falling oil costs.

“The size of the surplus will decline in the second half, but the underlying trend of the surplus will be sustained,” Kim Young-bae, the director general of the BOK’s economic statistics division, said at a press conference.

Kim added that the surplus for July will be smaller than the June data but will be a significant amount.

Korea’s goods balance logged a surplus of $5 billion in June, up from a revised $1.72 billion the previous month, the BOK noted. The value of the goods balance surplus marked the largest surplus in 20 months.

Exports eked out gains in June compared with the previous month by rising 1.48 percent on-month to $46.8 billion. But imports declined 5.88 percent on-month to $41.8 billion.

On a customs-cleared basis, Korea’s outbound shipments to the European Union fell 19.7 percent on-year to $4.11 billion in June and its exports to China declined 2.4 percent to $10.9 billion, the BOK added.

“The pattern of the current account surplus, driven by falls in imports, may persist for the time being as the economic growth is slowing,” said Lee Sung-kwon, a chief economist at Shinhan Investment Corp. “But the surplus will help give solace to the local foreign exchange market.”

The service account, which includes outlays by Koreans on overseas trips, posted a surplus of $170.1 million last month, smaller than a record $1.59 billion in May.

The primary income account, which tracks wages for foreign workers and dividend payments overseas, logged a surplus of $901.8 million in June, up from $341.6 million in May.

Meanwhile, the capital and financial account, covering cross-border investments, posted a net outflow of $5.28 billion in June, compared with a net outflow of a revised $3 billion the previous month, the central bank said.

The central bank revised up its 2012 forecast of the current account surplus to $20 billion from $14.5 billion, but the full-year surplus numbers are smaller than $26.5 billion tallied for 2011. 

(Yonhap News)