Seoul, July 26 (IANS) South Korea’s travel account posted a surplus for the third consecutive month in May, driven by an increase in foreign visitors, government data showed on Sunday.
The travel account recorded a surplus of $220.5 million in May, compared with a deficit of $820.2 million a year earlier, according to data from the Korea Tourism Organization, reports Yonhap news agency.
It marked the third consecutive monthly surplus since March, when the account recorded a surplus of $263.8 million, snapping a 72-month streak of deficits that began in March 2020.
Travel income totalled $2.58 billion in May, exceeding travel spending of $2.36 billion.
On average, each foreign visitor spent $1,324 in South Korea, while each South Korean traveler spent $1,007 overseas.
Separate government data showed that 1.95 million foreign visitors arrived in South Korea in May, up 19.4 percent from a year earlier, while the number of South Koreans traveling abroad fell 2.1 percent from a year earlier to 2.34 million.
“Foreign visitor numbers have risen sharply in recent months, driven by the growing popularity of the Korean Wave and the weakening won,” said Kim Nam-jo, a professor of tourism at Hanyang University. “At the same time, higher airfares stemming from the Middle East conflict have discouraged South Koreans from traveling abroad.”
Meanwhile, pension funds, including the National Pension Service (NPS), one of the biggest institutional investors in the South Korean stock market, turned net buyers of local equities this month for the first time this year, bourse data showed on Sunday.
The NPS and other pension funds bought a net 68.4 billion won (US$46.8 million) worth of shares on the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) through the first 24 days of July, according to the Korea Exchange.
It marked their first month of net-buying this year after six consecutive months of net selling.
Over the first 17 trading sessions in July, they were net buyers on 11 days and net sellers on six.
