South Korea's Exports and imports growth will continue to slow

Interim trade data until 20 March suggested that the slowdown in South Korea's export and import growth would continue in March.

The exports are likely to rise from $41.5bn in February to $47.5bn in March, and imports to rise from $33.8bn to $38.0bn over the same period, which would not be strong enough to show a genuine recovery when considering the usual seasonal patterns.

Trade surplus would be widened even further from $7.7bn to $9.5bn. 

Societe Generale says that their forecasts for yoy growth in exports and imports in March are lower than that of the yoy growth for January and February combined (-2.1% for exports, -15.2% for imports).

Both exports and imports growth will soon rebound thanks to favourable base effects as well as the likely bottoming of oil prices.