Koreans Spend Record Amounts Abroad
Published on | Source
Koreans are spending ever more money overseas while foreigners are spending less here.
Advertisement
Korean spent a record W7.62 trillion abroad in the third quarter last year, up a whopping 20.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea on Monday (US$1=W1,162).
The figure has risen from W5 trillion between 2012 and 2014.
The increase was mainly due to overseas flights getting more affordable thanks to budget carriers.
Another reason is that more rich people go shopping abroad and more people buy goods on overseas websites.
Meanwhile, foreigners spent only W3.39 trillion here from last July to September, a mere 44 percent of the amount Koreans spent overseas. Their spending here has been on the decline since it peaked at W4.25 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2014.
A Statistics Korea spokesman said the reasons for the drop in foreign spending here are a Chinese crackdown on "zero-dollar" package tours and souring relations between Seoul and Beijing.