South Korea expects to avert its first current account deficit in nine years this year, but the surplus may be below the government's target of at least $3 billion, a deputy finance minister said on Sunday.
Deputy Finance Minister Kim Seok-dong said on state KBS television that the current account would probably post a deficit in August before returning to a surplus in September and in the rest of 2006. For the first seven months of the year, the country posted a $638.5 million deficit in the current account, the broadest measure of foreign trade in goods and services.
"For the whole of this year, we expect to record a surplus, even if the surplus may fall slightly short of our earlier forecast," Kim said.
In July, the finance ministry cut its forecast for the 2006 current account surplus to between $3 billion and $5 billion, from a forecast of $15 billion set in late 2005.