South Korea's imports of durable consumer goods reached US$955 million in December, down 26.1 percent from a year ago, the Korea Herald reported on Wednesday.

The decline was mainly due to drop of imports in expensive items such as automobiles, home appliances, gold and golf equipment, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said at a report.

Among the four items, the value of automobile imports dropped the most.

The KCS said the value of automobiles imported last month amounted to US$126 million, while the number of the same period in 2007 was recorded at US$262 million.

The value of imported gold in December decreased 47.9 percent from a year ago to US$54 million while the value of golf equipment imported decreased by 22.5 percent, the data showed, the KSC said.

Import of home appliances in December last year dropped 15.2 percent to US$209 million from the same period in 2007, the KSC said.

The Korea Herald attributed the fall to the economic downturn which has caused consumers to put off buying high price items such as automobiles and home appliances.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2009)