Current account surplus widens to $4.52 billion in February

South Korea's current account surplus reached US$4.52 billion in February, up from $3.29 billion tallied in the previous month, the central bank reported Monday.

The country continued to record a current account surplus for the 24th consecutive month in February, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

In the first two months of this year, the current account surplus totaled $7.81 billion.

Exports in February amounted to $48.03 billion, up 7.3 percent from the same month last year, while imports reached $42.60 billion, up merely 1.3 percent over the cited period, the report said.

The balance of goods posted a surplus of $5.43 billion, compared with $4.37 billion recorded a month earlier.

The service account logged a deficit of $1.06 billion, a drop from a deficit of $1.91 billion in January.

The BOK has estimated that the nation’s yearly current account surplus could reach $55 billion in 2014.

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com