South Korea’s chip exports to China sink as US controls tighten
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The decline at the beginning of 2025 coincides with the US implementing its export restrictions on cutting-edge semiconductors to China.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SEOUL – South Korea’s semiconductor exports to China plunged in February, deepening concerns about a cooling in global demand already threatened by US tariffs, as Washington steps up its restrictions on technology supplies to Beijing.
Chip sales to the world’s second-largest economy including Hong Kong fell 31.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to South Korea’s Trade Ministry. That is bigger than the 22.5 per cent contraction reported for January and comes after a 2024 rally that helped fuel South Korea’s economic growth.
The decline at the beginning of 2025 coincides with the US implementing its export restrictions on cutting-edge semiconductors to China.
SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics are two of the world’s biggest memory-chip makers and also operate semiconductor plants in China. The country received about two-fifths of South Korea’s entire technology exports as at the end of 2024, but the flow of chips appears to be slowing as a mixture of reasons drag down South Korea’s key trading sector.
South Korea’s total semiconductor exports slipped 3 per cent from a year earlier in February, according to the government data.
Declining prices in conventional memory chips and a technological transition in semiconductor production were among reasons the growth in exports slowed, the ministry said in a statement released on March 16.
The growing challenges in exporting chips poses a risk for South Korea’s economy, which is expected to lose momentum compared with 2024 as US President Donald Trump imposes tariffs and private spending remains weak.
The nation is also struggling to emerge from the economic impact of the turmoil triggered when President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declared martial law in December 2024. bloomberg
