S. Korea's current account surplus tops 100 bln USD in 2015

South Korea's current account surplus, the broadest gauge of cross-border capital flow, topped 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 due mainly to faster fall in imports than exports, central bank data showed on Monday.

Surplus reached 105.96 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, surpassing the 100 billion-dollar mark for the first time in the country's history, according to the Bank of Korea.

The 2015 figure was up 25.6 percent from the previous year's 84.37 billion dollars and nearly doubled a surplus of 50.84 billion dollars tallied in 2012.

The surplus trend came as imports reduced faster than exports, shoring up worries about the so-called recession-type surplus, under which the surplus puts upward pressure on the local currency and negatively affects exports.

Exports fell 10.5 percent from a year earlier to 548.93 billion dollars in 2015, with imports tumbling 18.2 percent to 428.56 billion dollars.

Trade surplus for goods amounted to 120.37 billion dollars in 2015, up from 88.89 billion dollars in 2014. Enditem