S.Korea posts current accounts surplus for 49 months

South Korea's economy posted a current account surplus for 49 straight months thanks to faster fall in imports than exports, central bank data showed on Monday.

Current account surplus reached 10.09 billion U.S. dollars in March, surpassing the 10 billion-dollar level for the first time in six months, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The surplus reduced from 9.91 billion dollars in November 2015 to 6.82 billion dollars in January 2016 before expanding to 10.09 billion dollars in March.

For the first three months of this year, the current account surplus reached 24 billion dollars, the highest since the bank began compiling the data in 1980.

The current account balance stayed in the black for 49 months in a row, maintaining the longest monthly surplus since March 2012.

The continued surplus was mainly attributable to faster fall in imports than exports, leading to a trade surplus for goods at 12.45 billion dollars in March, up from 7.54 billion dollars in February.

Exports, which account for about half of the economy, reduced 9.3 percent from a year earlier to 44.54 billion dollars in March, and imports tumbled 16.1 percent to 32.1 billion dollars. Enditem