Korea - February trade

Paul Cavey

Mar 2, 2022 • 1 min read

East Asia Today

The big releases today were Japan CPI and trade for October and November PMIs, and Korean October PPI and exports for the first 20 days of November. Also, a longer note on Korean capital flows, and an update of the detailed trade data for China shown in our interactive dashboard.

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Japan – cycle and inflation still ticking the boxes

The BOJ's base case has been that tariffs would slow inflation and growth. Today's data – November flash PMIs, and October trade and CPI data – give no indication that such slowdowns are occurring.

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Korea – household offshore equity buying and the KRW

Global factors like US rates and JPY weakness are dragging down the KRW. But there are also local drivers, particularly Korea's big buying of overseas equities. For both the NPS and households, I would expect that to slow, with the reversal likely to be sharp if global markets really sell off.