Anchor: South Korea’s current account swung to a surplus in May after hitting an eleven-year low the previous month due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The size of the surplus, however, was still less than half the level of a year earlier. 
Moon Gwang-lip has more. 

Report: The Bank of Korea released preliminary data on Tuesday estimating that the country’s current account surplus in May hit two-point-29 billion dollars.

The reading marks a turnaround from a three-point-33-billion-dollar deficit posted in April, the largest deficit since January 2011.

However, the surplus more than halved from a year earlier when it posted five-point-18 billion dollars.

The on-year decline is mainly attributed to merchandise exports, which amid sluggish global trade dropped by around three billion dollars to two-point-five billion dollars. 

The service account deficit, on the other hand, dwindled to 480 million dollars from 950 million dollars a year earlier, thanks to drops in travel and logistics-related deficits amid pandemic-induced lockdowns across the world. 

Overall, South Korea's exports plunged 28-point-two percent on-year to 34-point-six billion dollars in May, while imports dropped 24-point-eight percent to 32-point-one billion dollars. On-year exports and imports both fell for three straight months.

The central bank said despite prolonged uncertainty caused in part by low oil prices and U.S.-China trade tension, the country remains on course to meet its target of 57 billion dollars in annual current account surplus for this year. 
Moon Gwang-lip, KBS World Radio News.