Manufacturing and mining shipments up 7 percent

Korea’s manufacturing and mining industry shipments increased in 2017, mainly due to growth in the electronics, refined petroleum and machinery sectors, a government report showed on Tuesday.

Combined shipments by companies in the sectors with more than 10 employees reached 1,516 trillion won ($1.34 trillion), up 7 percent, or 99.7 trillion won, from the year before.

The increase is attributable to a 14.6 percent year-on-year rise in electronics shipments and a 26.6 percent gain in shipments from local refined petroleum businesses during the one-year period, the agency said. The machinery sector posted a 19 percent year-on-year rise last year.

Such gains offset losses in the shipbuilding and automaking sectors, it said.

The report also said that the average shipments for manufacturing companies stood at 21.7 billion won last year, up 6 percent from 2016.

It said value-added product deliveries by mining and manufacturing companies rose 8.1 percent, or 41 trillion won, in 2017 to over 547.7 trillion won.

As of the end of 2017, there were 69,790 mining and manufacturing companies in the country employing 2.96 million people. This represents a slight fall from the year before.

Yonhap