Korea's technology trade deficit has narrowed slightly for two consecutive years. The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning published on December 29 a report "2012 Technology Trade Statistics." According to this report, Korea's technology trade volume in 2012 was US$16.36 billion, up 17.4 percent from $13.93 billion in 2011. Of this, exports rose 31.7 percent to $5.31 billion while imports increased 11.6 percent to $11.05 billion.
As technology exports rose more rapidly than imports, the trade deficit volume has shrunk slightly to $5.74 billion from $5.87 billion. The technology balance of payments, the figure showing the ratio of technology exports vis-a-vis imports, has also increased to 0.48 from 0.41 in 2011.
The Ministry held on December 10 a National Science and Technology Council steering committee meeting and announced a plan to bring up the figure to 0.70 by 2020. The average ratio of the technology balance of payments for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries is 0.96.
