SEOUL, June 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's deficit in services trade with the United States hit a record high last year, with surplus in goods trade with the world's largest economy falling to a five-year low, central bank data showed Thursday.
South Korea posted 15.38 billion U.S. dollars of deficit in services trade with the United States in 2017, topping the previous high of 14.09 billion dollars tallied in 2015, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
Transport account deficit rose 0.2 billion dollars over the year to 1.73 billion dollars in 2017 due to restructuring of local shipping companies and slump in the global shipping industry.
Business services deficit jumped from 1.99 billion dollars in 2016 to 4.27 billion dollars in 2017 as local companies paid fees for research and development services, advertising and consulting to the U.S. firms.
Surplus in goods trade with the United States was 39.99 billion dollars in 2017, posting the lowest since 2012.
Meanwhile, South Korea's current account surplus with China, the country's biggest trading partner, shrank to 42.97 billion dollars in 2017 from 43.39 billion dollars a year earlier.
South Korea posted a current account deficit of 27.27 billion dollars in trade with Japan in 2017, up from a deficit of 21.51 billion dollars in 2016.
South Korea's current account deficit in trade with the European Union grew from 8.17 billion dollars in 2016 to 9.06 billion dollars in 2017.
