South Korea's free trade deals helped prop up weak exports and imports in the first half amid the sluggish pace of the global economic recovery, government data showed Thursday.
  

Asia's fourth-largest economy reported two-way transactions contracting 10.2 percent on-year in the January-June period, with numbers for countries that have free trade agreements backtracking 6.6 percent the Korea Customs Service said.
  

In comparison, trade with countries that do not have an open trade arrangement dropped 12.7 percent on-year.
  

South Korea's trade stood at $491.1 billion in the first half of 2015, with exports reaching $268.7 billion won and imports standing at $222.4 billion.
  

As of July, South Korea implemented 11 FTAs with 49 countries that accounted for 43.5 percent of its trade. This is three times larger than 14.7 percent tallied for 2010. The country has FTAs with the United States, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The KCS said while exports shrank 5.1 percent overall in the first six months of this year, outbound shipments to FTA partners were down only 3.5 percent. It said exports to country that did not have open trade deals fell 6.4 percent.
  

On imports which plunged 15.6 percent on-year, inbound shipments from countries that Seoul has FTAs with were down 10.3 percent, while those that did not benefit from preferential tariffs plunged 18.9 percent on-year.
  

In the first half, 71.3 percent of exports to FTA partners benefited from preferential duties and other open trade rules, up 2.1 percentage points from the year before. For imports, corresponding numbers edged up 0.2 percentage point to 68.2 percent.
 

"With the FTA proving to be a useful bulwark against unfavorable trade conditions, the government plans to help companies take full advantage of its benefits by providing more information to small and medium traders who have been slow to use the agreements to the fullest," the KCS said. (Yonhap)