East Asia Econ

East Asia Today

China's exports ended 2025 with a bang, with auto shipments surging. Import demand is much weaker, but did at least trend up last year. Also today, some charts on bank lending in Japan, which is strong, and a cycle review of Korea before tomorrow's BOK meeting.

Paul Cavey

Jan 14, 2026 • 3 min read

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Korea – unchanged, except for DRAM

Domestic sluggishness and financial stability concerns aren't changing, so likely keep the BOK on hold tomorrow. But there is a new development: the 10x rise in the DRAM price. To me, that is shifting cycle risks to the upside. Tomorrow's meeting will be important if that is the bank's view too.

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East Asia Today

Some charts showing how Korea is structurally converging with Japan and Taiwan. One area of convergence is the current account surplus, which across the region is large and growing, now up to 6% of GDP in Japan. Other data today in Japan reiterate the improvement in cyclical momentum in late 2025.

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East Asia Today

A longer note summarising cycle and structure and arguing that risk-reward is moving in favour of Asian currencies. Against that framework, today's export data for the first 10 days of January in Korea were soft. But Taiwan wage data for November tick the right boxes.