In the first half of the current year, South Korea's car production fell by 4.3 percent year on year to 2,279,790 units, according to a report released by the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MOTIE). The report says that the fall on year-on-year basis was due to reduced working hours. In June this year, South Korea's total car output decreased by 6.5 percent year on year due to fewer working days and sluggish sales of some domestic automobile manufactures, and was up 3.3 percent compared to May this year, totaling 394,386 units.
Compared with the same half of the previous year, domestic sales of South Korean cars decreased 0.8 percent in the first six months. Imported car sales rose 19.7 percent to 74,487 vehicles, while sales of domestic production cars fell 2.6 percent to 676,823 units, both on year-on-year basis. Meanwhile, in the first half of the year, car exports from South Korea fell by 6.7 percent year on year to 1,587,273 units, with rising overseas production and a weaker Japanese yen as contributing factors.
According to the ministry, in the first half of the year South Korean exports to the US continued to show modest growth on the back of market recovery, while South Korea exported fewer cars to Latin America and Asia as more cars were produced abroad. Notably, exports to the European Union showed an upward trend thanks to the effect of the South Korea-EU free trade agreement (FTA).
