Choi Woo-seok, head of the trade and investment division at the Trade Ministry, speaks at a press briefing held Monday. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s semiconductor exports soared to a record high in June, backed by strong global demand, data from the Trade Ministry showed Monday, helping the country's exports to continue their upward trajectory.

The country’s total exports stood at $57.07 billion in June, jumping 5.1 percent on-year, and imports came to $49.07 billion, shedding 7.5 percent on-year. As a result, Korea posted a trade surplus of $8 billion, marking a ninth consecutive month of surplus.

The surplus was led by the rise of chip exports, the backbone of the Korean economy. Among the $57.07 billion, $13.42 billion was generated from outbound shipments of semiconductors, marking a 50.9 percent on-month rise and eight consecutive months of on-year growth. It was the highest monthly figure since $13.19 billion in March 2022.

The Trade Ministry viewed that strong demand for high-performance memory chips like DRAM for artificial intelligence servers has led to the recovery in exports.

“As high-performance memory chips take up a large part of Korea’s semiconductor exports, they will bring up the prices. The future for chip exports is bright in the latter half of this year, too,” said Choi Woo-seok, head of the Trade and Investment Division at the Trade Ministry.

Exports of cars, the second-largest export item here, decreased by 0.4 percent on-year, coming to $6.2 billion. But the sector remains stable, as automobile exports have surpassed $6 billion every month this year, excluding February with the Lunar New Year's holiday, the ministry viewed.

Car exports reached a total of $37 billion in the first half of this year, the highest ever, backed by an increase in the exports of hybrid cars.

With the chip cycle leading the exports recovery, the country’s exports in the first six months of this year reached $334.8 billion, up 9.1 percent on year. It was the second-highest amount ever, following $350.5 billion in the same period in 2022. The trade balance for the period came to $23.1 billion, the highest since $31.1 billion in 2018.

The US was Korea’s top destination for exports. Korea’s outbound shipments to the US hit $11.02 billion in June. The figure has been on the rise for 11 months straight since August last year, when it turned positive.

Outbound shipments to China stood at $10.7 billion, inching up 1.8 percent. That was Korea’s second-largest partner for exports.

Meanwhile, a study released Monday showed Korea's export dependency on China weakened last year.

The country’s outbound shipments to China came to $124.8 billion in 2023, marking a 19.9 percent drop on-year, according to a report released by the Institute for International Trade under the trade lobby group Korea International Trade Association.

With the downsizing in export volume, the trade balance with China logged a deficit of $1.81 billion last year, hitting a yearly deficit for the first time since 1992.

The report assessed the transformation in the Korea-China trade relationship and changes in the supply chain structure have affected the figures.

"(Korea) has to respond to the changes in China's industrial structure by targeting the consumption market of China with final goods, instead of only eyeing the intermediate goods (demand) of China,” the report pointed out.

"Korean companies need support for research and development and infrastructure construction to internalize its supply chain to localize the technology to process raw materials, which is currently monopolized by China," the report said.