Korea International Trade Association estimates that South Korea’s trade volume this year will be recorded up to 901 billion US dollars.

This is a sharp decline from last year’s record one-trillion dollars.

The association estimates that the annual exports will fall 5.6 percent to minus growth for the second time in a row, for the first time in 58 years.

South Korea ranked in the global export volume is expected to drop from sixth to eighth.

The estimate comes at a time South Korea celebrate the 53rd Trade Day on Monday (12/05/2016).

For the first time since 2002, no company is expected to receive a “Ten-billion Dollar Export Tower Award”, given to companies that passed the trading volume for the first time.

Underperformance seem to be caused by the economic recession and economic downturn in developing countries which is South Korea’s main export.
Next year, trading conditions are expected to be worse amid the movement of the countries in the world to increase protectionism.