By Jihoon Lee
SEOUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) - South Korea's exports likely rose at the fastest annualised pace in more than four years in January due to surging demand for artificial intelligence chips and favourable calendar effects, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.
Exports from Asia's fourth-largest economy, a bellwether for global trade, were projected to have risen 29.9% from a year earlier, according to a median forecast of 11 economists.
That would be faster than the 13.3% rise in the previous month
and the biggest year-on-year increase since November 2021.
"The surge in semiconductor exports is expected to continue for the time being on sharp price rises and supply shortages," said Park Sang-hyun, an economist at iM Securities in Seoul.
Exports have been rising since June on robust semiconductor shipments amid a global boom in AI investment, despite a hit from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. and South Korea will work out a solution, when asked about his surprise announcement on Monday that he would increase tariffs on imports from the Asian ally to 25%, from the current 15% set under a trade deal reached last year.
In January, there were favourable calendar effects of 3-1/2 more working days than the same month last year. Monthly data for January and February are often distorted in South Korea due to working-day differences resulting from the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays.
In the first 20 days of this month, exports rose 14.9% as chip shipments jumped 70.2%, offsetting declines in auto and ship exports. By destination, exports to China rose 30.2%, while those to the U.S. climbed 19.3%.
South Korea's government this month raised its economic growth forecast for 2026 to 2.0% from 1.8%, citing stronger chip demand, while the central bank also flagged upside risk to its projection of 1.8% and signalled it was done easing policy.
"We continue to expect semiconductor export growth to rise to around 70% year-on-year in 2026, versus 22% in 2025, led by the global AI capex cycle," said Kim Jin-wook, an economist at Citi.
Imports were projected to have risen 14.6% in January, after growing 4.6% in December. That would mark the biggest increase since September 2022.
The median forecast for the monthly trade balance stood at a surplus of $4.60 billion, narrowing from $12.17 billion in December, which was the biggest since September 2017.
South Korea is scheduled to report trade figures for January on Sunday, February 1 at 9 a.m. local time (0000 GMT).
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee in Seoul, Polling by Devayani Sathyan in Bengaluru; Editing by Jamie Freed)
