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Exports up 45.3 pct in 1st 10 days of Aug.
South Korea's exports jumped 45.3% in the first 10 days of August, reaching $21.3 billion, with a trade surplus of $1.8 billion. Separately, the number of first-time exporters rose nearly 4% in 2025, and their combined exports hit a five-year high.
South Korea's exports surged 45.3 percent from a year earlier in the first 10 days of August, reaching US$21.3 billion, according to data from the Korea Customs Service released Tuesday. Imports also rose, but at a slower pace, yielding a trade surplus of $1.8 billion. In a separate development, the number of first-time exporters grew nearly 4 percent in 2025, with their combined exports hitting the highest level since 2019, the customs agency said.
Coverage Comparison
Yonhap News reported both the August trade figures and the first-time exporter data, presenting them as separate stories. The August 1-10 trade report focused on the sharp increase in outbound shipments, while the first-time exporter story highlighted the growth in new market entrants and their contribution to overall export vitality. Yonhap's coverage of the trade figures was neutral, while the first-time exporter report carried a more positive tone, describing the rise as adding "fresh vitality" to the country's exports.
The two reports complement each other in painting a picture of South Korea's export performance: one shows a strong short-term surge in the current month, and the other indicates broader growth in the number of businesses entering the export market over the past year.
Key Claims
Exports up 45.3% in early August: Outbound shipments totaled US$21.3 billion in the August 1-10 period, up from $14.6 billion in the same period of 2025, as reported by Yonhap News citing Korea Customs Service data.
Imports rise 23.1%, trade surplus at $1.8 billion: Imports reached $19.5 billion over the cited period, leading to a trade surplus of $1.8 billion, according to the same Yonhap report.
First-time exporters up nearly 4%: The number of businesses with no export records in the previous three years rose to 19,746 in 2025, up from 19,041 a year earlier, a nearly 4 percent increase, Yonhap reported. This marked the largest on-year increase in the past five years, the Korea Customs Service said.
Combined exports of first-time exporters up 13.2%: These companies' combined exports rose to US$6.9 billion in 2025, up 13.2 percent from a year earlier, the highest level since 2019, according to the customs data.
Average export value per first-time exporter: The average export value per company was $350,000, with exports remaining below $100,000 for 80 percent of first-time exporters, Yonhap reported.
How this outlet told it
Yonhap News — English
Framing: Export growth — Neutral
Facts Included:
South Korea's exports jumped 45.3 percent from a year earlier in the first 10 days of August
Outbound shipments reached US$21.3 billion in the August 1-10 period
Imports went up 23.1 percent on-year to $19.5 billion over the cited period
Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimSouth Korea's exports jumped 45.3 percent from a year earlier in the first 10 days of August. Outbound shipments reached US$21.3 billion in the August 1-10 period.