Whopping 20% decrease in exports

As exports continued to fall for an unprecedented fifth consecutive month, solving the problem is becoming increasingly urgent.

Exports showed temporary increases this past May but dropped by 14.3% in June and again plummeted 20% in July as compared to the same period of last year. Export profitability for many liners has slid into the red, below lower adjusted export goals.

This 20% contraction over a year ago was the worst since 1967 when monthly import and export statistics were first gathered.

In January 1985 there was a 19.4% decrease, and a 16.8% decrease was recorded in February 1999. Beginning this year, this is the third time to see double-digit decreases following a 10.3% decrease in April and a 14.3% fall in June.

Imports also took a beating, dropping 18.7%, the worst drop since the 28.9% scale down in November 1998.

These decreases are accounted for by the prolonged global semi-conductor and computer industry depression, as well as the fall in unit prices of several main export items.

For example, with respect to semi-conductors, 128 MB DRAM chips fell to 1.74 dollars from 17.74 dollars last year, while 64 MB DRAM chips also plunged to 0.92 dollars from 8.80 dollars. These contributed to exports decreasing to 900 million dollars, a 63% decrease from 2.4 billion dollars last year.

Even though cargo amounts increased by 8% during the January to June period this year, unit price decreases of main export goods deeply influenced the shrinking value of total exports. Of course, the weak export phenomenon is basically rooted in the global economy downturn, as seen in all major developed countries such the U.S., Japan, the European Union and ASEAN, where as of July 20 we've seen double-digit decreases of 24%, 26.1%, 11.9% and 19.7%, respectively. The sharp 23% surge in semi-conductor prices last July also made for a comparatively high decrease when compared to this year.