South Korea posted a current account surplus for 27 months in a row, the second-longest surplus trend in the country's history, due to solid exports amid recovery in advanced economies, central bank data showed Friday.
Current account surplus was 9.3 billion U.S. dollars in May, up 30.6 percent from the prior month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The current account balance has stayed in black since March 2012 when it recorded a 3.81 billion dollar surplus. It was the longest surplus trend except for 38 straight months of surplus from June 1986 to July 1989.
For the first five months of this year, the current account surplus reached 31.5 billion dollars, some 50 percent of 68 billion dollars, which the BOK put as its current account surplus outlook for this year.
Exports, which account for around half of the economy, came in at 52.61 billion dollars in May, down 7.2 percent from a month earlier.
The fall was mainly attributed to less business days caused by the so-called golden week from the May 1 Labor Day to the May 6 Buddha's Birthday.
The daily average exports was 2.23 billion dollars in May, up from 2.1 billion dollars in the same month last year.