South Korea's current account surplus widened to USD 4.82 billion in December 2018 from USD 4.49 billion in the same month the previous year. It is the lowest current account surplus since April. The goods account surplus shrank to USD 6.53 billion from USD 7.92 billion a year ago, as exports declined to USD 49.75 billion (from USD 50.27 billion) and imports climbed to USD 43.04 billion (from USD 42.35 billion). Also, the primary income account surplus narrowed to USD 1.04 billion from USD 1.12 billion. In contrast, the services account deficit narrowed to USD 1.95 billion from USD 3.71 billion and the secondary income account gap shrank to USD 0.80 billion from USD 0.85 billion. For the twelve months through December 2018 , the current account surplus widened to USD 76.41 billion from USD 75.23 billion for the year 2017. Current Account in South Korea averaged 1547.24 USD Million from 1900 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 12409.70 USD Million in June of 2016 and a record low of -3845 USD Million in August of 2008.
Current Account in South Korea is expected to be 9800.00 USD Million by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Current Account in South Korea to stand at 8050.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the South Korea Current Account is projected to trend around 9010.00 USD Million in 2020, according to our econometric models.